Sergeant Who Planted Drugs 'Used' Slain Detective: Commissioner

BALTIMORE, MD — Baltimore's police commissioner did not mince words after a federal indictment came down Thursday lodging new allegations against a former police sergeant already indicted on racketeering charges earlier this year. Federal officials allege the sergeant planted 28 grams of heroin in a vehicle, which led to the imprisonment of two innocent people for years.

"What a violation," Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said, calling the alleged behavior a "despicable act."

Sgt. Wayne Earl Jenkins of Middle River was indicted by a federal grand jury Thursday on charges of destruction, alteration or falsification of records in federal investigations and deprivation of rights under color of law.

He was previously indicted in March on criminal racketeering and fraud charges, with a trial scheduled for Jan. 16, 2018, officials say.

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Prosecutors said that they were investigating corruption within the Baltimore Police Department when they learned that Jenkins planted heroin in a vehicle involved in a crash that killed another person.

"Hopefully, he'll be put underneath of a jail," Davis said at a press briefing Thursday, implying he hopes that Jenkins, who remains behind bars, spends the rest of his life there.

"The nefarious Sergeant Wayne Jenkins" was how Davis referred to the officer. The indictment prompted several questions, particularly since Detective Sean Suiter was fatally shot the day before he was to appear as a federal witness in the case.

The indictment states that on April 28, 2010, Jenkins was driving an unmarked police car with another officer when he and a second unmarked car, which the commissioner confirmed was driven by Suiter, engaged in a vehicle pursuit.

The officers had received information about drug sales in the area and when they showed their badges to two men in the car, the vehicle sped away, the DEA reported.

While going through the intersection of Belle Avenue and Gwynn Oak Avenue, the car rammed into another vehicle with such force that the car was "pushed onto the front porch of a row house on the corner of the intersection," the U.S. Attorney said in a statement.

The DEA said that the two men who had refused the traffic stop ran from the scene, where the other driver died and his wife was seriously injured.

According to the DEA's statement in 2011: "Detectives searched [the suspect] vehicle and recovered 28.62 grams of heroin and a digital scale on the passenger’s side floorboard of the car."

Here is what the U.S. Attorney said actually occurred on April 28, 2010:

"The indictment alleges there were no drugs in the car...prior to the crash. After the crash, and after [the two men who had been in the car] had been arrested...Jenkins told [the other officer at the scene] that the 'stuff' was in the [suspects' car]...and that Jenkins was going to send [Suiter] to the car to find it because [Suiter] was 'clueless.'"

According to the indictment, Suiter found 28 grams of heroin that Jenkins had planted in the car.

"Later that day, Jenkins authored a false statement of probable cause where he claimed that '32 individually wrapped pieces of plastic containing a tan powder substance each weighing approximately one gram (all of which was suspected high purity heroin)' was recovered from [the] car by [Suiter]. The indictment charges that Jenkins knew the heroin in [the] car had been planted."

In essence, the indictment says that Suiter, who found the drugs, was set up by Jenkins to find them.

"Detective Suiter was used," the commissioner said on Thursday. "He was used and he was put in a position where he unwittingly recovered drugs that had been planted by another police officer, and that's a damn shame."

Suiter was to testify before a grand jury in connection with the case but was shot the day before, the commissioner said. The detective died on Nov. 16 from a gunshot wound to the head. His funeral was held Wednesday and drew police from across the country, officials said.

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The U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland is requesting that the courts vacate the convictions of the two men who had pleaded guilty in the heroin case. Prosecutors say both have been released from custody. One served two and a half years in federal custody for the bogus heroin distribution charges and was placed on supervised release, the U.S. Attorney said, while the other served six years and was released in August when officials said they learned Jenkins planted the heroin.

The two people who were involved, Umar Burley and Brent Matthews, entered guilty pleas in federal court on June 10, 2011, to charges of possession with intent to distribute heroin "despite the fact they knew they were innocent," officials said. "Both men concluded that in a trial involving Sergeant Jenkins' word against theirs, they would lose."

Davis said that he would offer more information regarding the investigation on Friday after consulting with additional people, including members of Suiter's family. He repeated that Suiter was a stellar officer.

"Detective Suiter was never the target of an investigation," Davis said. "Today's indictment...affirms that, but I do promise to go into that more tomorrow."

If convicted, Jenkins could face a 20-year sentence related to the new charges.

Pictured, Sergeant Jenkins, courtesy of Baltimore Police.