Ex-N.J. Cop Lies About Finding Marijuana, Loses Court Appeal

MONTCLAIR, NJ — A New Jersey state appellate court has ruled against a former Montclair police officer convicted of lying about how many bags of marijuana he found at a potential crime scene in 2009.

Former Montclair police officer Michael Whittle had filed an appeal in protest of his 2012 conviction for obstruction and filing a false police report, but on Aug. 12, an appellate panel of judges upheld the trial court’s earlier decision.

According to court records, the charges stemmed from a 2009 incident at an apartment building in Montclair. During the encounter, Whittle allegedly found 10 bags of marijuana in a jacket left in the building’s hallway after detaining a suspect he found “loitering” in the area.

With the suspect in custody, Whittle called a supervisor to ask if he could arrest the detained person even though he wasn’t sure who the jacket and marijuana belonged to. When the supervisor told him no, the suspect was released.

However, Whittle later told another supervisor that he didn’t find any drugs during his search, court records state.

In February of 2012, Whittle was sentenced to two, six-month suspended sentences, a $250 fine and forfeiture of public office in the future.

Read the full court decision here.

In his appeal, Whittle stated that he believed he would be fired if he didn’t answer questions about the incident during a meeting with his supervisor, which the former police officer argued should render the conversation inadmissible as evidence.

The appellate judges refuted Whittle’s argument, stating that there was a lack of evidence that the former officer “subjectively believed that he was compelled to give a statement upon threat of loss of job.”

Whittle later attempted to blame the incident on “emotional trauma” he suffered while performing CPR on a deceased nine-year-old girl, but lost his bid to obtain accidental disability retirement benefits that would have cut him publicly funded paychecks for the rest of his life.

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