Indicted Baltimore Police Officers Charged With 13 More Robberies

BALTIMORE, MD — Three previously indicted Baltimore City Police Officers who were charged with federal racketeering in March have been charged with additional robberies, the U.S. Attorney's Office of Maryland announced Thursday.

Sergeant Wayne Earl Jenkins, 37, of Middle River; Detective Daniel Thomas Hersl, 48, of Joppa and Detective Marcus Roosevelt Taylor, 30, of Glen Burnie allegedly conducted 13 robberies, taking over $280,000 in US currency, more than 2 kilograms of cocaine, other narcotics, a 9mm handgun, a $4,000 wristwatch and other property, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors say the police officers stole money, property and narcotics by detaining victims, entering residents, conducting traffic stops and swearing out false search warrants.

In one case in spring 2015, Jenkins allegedly stole at least 20 pounds of "high-quality marijuana" and at least $20,000 from two individuals who were selling the drugs at Belvedere Towers in Baltimore City, prosectors said. Jenkins is accused of telling the buyer and seller that he was a Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent and told them he was seizing the money and drugs and would make a decision about whether to charge them at a later time.

After the incident, Jenkins drove Taylor and a co-defendant to a wooded area off Northern Parkway and gave them $5,000 each from the stolen money. Prosecutors said Jenkins then went to a strip club in Baltimore County, where he robbed a stripper.

See Related: 7 Baltimore Police Officers Indicted In Racketeering Scheme

Hersl is accused of stealing money from the car of an arrestee in summer 2016. He allegedly drove one of his co-defendants to the parking lot of a local high school and gave him a portion of the stolen money, prosecutors said. While Hersl and the co-defendant were splitting up the stolen money, Jenkins broke into the arrestee's storage unit and stole 2 kilograms of cocaine, prosecutors said.

The superseding indictment also alleges that in June 2016 Jenkins believed that a co-defendant owed him money, so Jenkins gave the co-defendant drugs and a firearm that had been seized in a law enforcement operation and told his co-defendant to sell them. The co-defendant, along with another co-defendant, sold the firearm to a drug dealer, prosecutors said.

Finnegan and Rahim are accused of robing a store owner of $20,000 at gunpoint on June 27, 2014. On that day, police officers with the BPD’s Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) executed a search warrant on a store in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Baltimore. During the search, one of the GTTF officers asked whether there was any large amounts of money in the store, and the owner told them she had $20,000 in cash in her pocketbook that she intended to use to pay off a tax liability, prosecutors said. At this point, GTTF officers did not make any arrests or seize anything from the store.

Later that day, a GTTF officer told Finnegan and Rahim about the money and they agreed to set up a robbery at the home of the store owner. Using a law enforcement database, the GTTF officer located the home address of the victims and told Finnegan and Rahim. The defendants surveilled the house, agreed to impersonate the police when conducting the home invasion and were given tactical gear by the detective, prosecutors said. Finnegan and Rahim entered the residence and robbed the victims at gunpoint of the $20,000.

The officers are also accused of systemic time and attendance fraud for claiming overtime when they were at home and on vacation. In one case, Sergeant Jenkins allegedly said he was working for several days when he was on vacation in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Aditionally, they're facing charges of obstructing law enforcement by alerting each other about potential investigations of their criminal conduct, and turning off their body cameras to avoid recording encounters with civilians.

A federal grand jury also returned a separate indictment charging two additional defendants — Thomas Robert Finnegan, 38, of Easton, Pa. and David Kendall Rahim, 41, of Baltimore — who are not police officers but were posing as police officers. The two men allegedly robbed two Baltimore City residents and brandished a firearm during a crime of violence. The indictment alleges that the two named defendants committed the robbery with a Baltimore City police officer.

Jenkins, Hersl and Taylor were arrested along with four other Baltimore police officers March 1 on federal racketeering charges.

During the course of the probe, U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein said officials found a "pernicious conspiracy scheme" in which members of the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force allegedly stopped individuals who in some cases had not committed crimes and then pocketed the people's cash and belongings.

The officers acted like "1930s-style gangsters, as far as I'm concerned," Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said, adding that most law enforcement officials were "embarrassed by this."

The following four Baltimore City Police, who were previously indicted in March, have rearraignments scheduled for the following dates:

• Detective Momodu Bondeva Kenton Gondo, 34, of Owings Mills - October 12, 2017;
• Detective Evodio Calles Hendrix, 32, of Randallstown - July 21, 2017;
• Detective Jemell Lamar Rayam, 36, of Owings Mills - November 9, 2017; and
• Detective Maurice Kilpatrick Ward, 36, of Middle River - July 24, 2017.

Photos: Jenkins, Hersl, Taylor, Baltimore Police