Former Atlanta Police Sgt Sentenced to Federal Prison for Warrantless Break-In of Private Home

ATLANTA, GA—WILBERT STALLINGS, 45, of Conyers, Georgia, was sentenced to prison today by United States District Judge Julie E. Carnes on the charge of conspiring to violate civil rights by breaking into a private residence to search for drugs without a warrant.

United States Attorney David E. Nahmias said, "Breaking into a private residence without a warrant or provocation is the ultimate violation of our constitutional right to be secure in our homes. Indeed, it is the very definition of lawlessness. Thankfully, the vast majority of police officers understand that their badges and guns do not grant them authority to ignore the Bill of Rights. For those few who still don't get it, today's sentence should send a message that police officers are sworn not just to enforce the law but, like all citizens, to obey it. Officers who violate the law risk their careers and, again like all citizens, their liberty. Sergeant Stallings should feel fortunate that the resident in this case was not home and not armed, or this civil-rights conspiracy could have had the same tragic end as the one that took the life of Kathryn Johnston the following year."

STALLINGS was sentenced to 18 months in prison to be followed by 2 years of supervised release, and was ordered to perform 80 hours of community service. STALLINGS pleaded guilty to the civil-rights conspiracy charge on March 24, 2008.

According to United States Attorney Nahmias and the information presented in court: In October 2005, STALLINGS, a sergeant in the narcotics unit and a 23-year veteran of the Atlanta Police Department, joined several other APD officers in executing a search warrant at an apartment located at 1058 Dill Avenue in Atlanta. At the time, Gregg Junnier, one of the officers who would later be convicted for his involvement in the Kathryn Johnston shooting, was a member of the narcotics team under STALLINGS' command. Junnier had obtained a search warrant for the apartment at 1058 Dill Avenue. The apartment was part of a duplex, and the adjacent apartment was 1056 Dill Avenue. No search warrant had been obtained for 1056 Dill Avenue.

The officers executed the warrant at 1058 Dill Avenue and recovered some marijuana in bushes behind the apartment, but found no drugs inside the apartment. Having not found what they expected at 1058 Dill Avenue, STALLINGS and Junnier discussed and illegally agreed to make a forced entry, without a search warrant, into the adjoining apartment at 1056 Dill Avenue. The officers under STALLINGS' command then broke into the apartment. STALLINGS, Junnier, and other officers on the narcotics team then entered the apartment. No one was home, and the officers found no evidence of any illegal activity. STALLINGS then instructed his team to leave the apartment and shut the door. He made a statement to the effect of: "Just shut the door. They'll just think it was a break-in." This violation of the civil rights of the apartment's resident was uncovered and investigated only after the Kathryn Johnston shooting, when Junnier began cooperating with the FBI in identifying other polic

This crime was part of a larger pattern of misconduct by STALLINGS and his team. Specifically, (1) STALLINGS permitted his team to work so-called "extra jobs" through which they were paid by business owners to provide services on duty that should have been free for all citizens -- and STALLINGS himself shared in the profits from that enterprise; (2) he knew and allowed his officers to "trade" search warrants with each other, by which one officer would swear in an affidavit to have witnessed events he never actually saw; (3) he let his officers use unregistered drug informants as sources for information, but allowed the officers to identify such informants falsely as "confidential and reliable" for the purposes of procuring search warrants; and (4) he knowingly permitted his officers to inflate or "pad" payment vouchers for informants so that the officers could use the extra money for their own purposes.

This case was investigated by Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Assistant United States Attorneys Jon-Peter Kelly and Kurt Erskine prosecuted the case.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008
FBI Agent Says Police Officer Feared Being Labeled a ‘RAT’
Arthur Bruce Tesler said he didn’t object to lies to get a search warrant and helped cover up the crime after an innocent woman was killed, because he feared retribution from Atlanta police if he became a “rat,” an FBI agent said Tuesday.

“He said in 2003 he had tried to report an officer who was involved in excessive force,” FBI Agent Joe Robuck told the Fulton County jury Tuesday. “All that resulted in his co-workers thinking of him as a rat and Mr. Tesler being transferred to a less desirable position in the Atlanta Police Department.”

The prosecution rested at noon in Tesler’s trial in Superior Court. where he faces charges including lying in an official investigation and violating his oath of office for his role in the narcotics raid that resulted in the death of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston on Nov. 21, 2006.

Tesler’s two co-defendants, Gregg Junnier and Jason R. Smith, have already pleaded guilty.

They faced more serious charges, including murder, and agreed to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

They have not yet been sentenced. Junnier testified last week and his sentence of up to 10 years is dependant on his cooperation.

He testified that Tesler, 42, participated in the coverup but he wasn’t the main instigator of the illegal warrant or the coverup scheme, which Junnier blamed on Smith. In a surprise, the prosecution did not call Smith to testify.

FBI agent Robuck was the main witness Tuesday morning and he described a coverup that reached above Tesler and his two co-defendants. The three detectives briefed their sergeant, Wilbert Stallings, that they were changing their story about which officers witnessed an informant buying crack cocaine at Johnston’s house at 933 Neal Street after Johnston was shot to death by narcotics unit officers.

“Sgt. Stallings was told there had been a change in the story and his comment, according to the investigation was, was ‘Just pick one and stick to it,” Robuck said.

The FBI agent described a police narcotics division that repeatedly lied to get warrants and planted evidence in investigations. Stallings, 44, was later convicted and is in prison on charges from another drug investigation that was turned up during the FBI investigation of the Neal Street case.

Robuck interviewed Tesler twice in the FBI investigation of police actions in getting a no-knock warrant to search for a reputed large stash of cocaine owned by a drug dealer, named “Sam,” whom police believe operated from 933 Neal Street.

They had arrested a low-level dealer earlier that day who they said claimed to have seen a kilo of cocaine – 2.2 pounds — in the house that day, Nov. 21, 2006.

Instead, Johnston was waiting with a gun when officers broke down her door without announcing they were police. She fired one shot and was killed in a massive return fire.

Tesler, who was covering the back of the house and did not fire his pistol, was so shaken by the killing that he couldn’t write his report, Robuck said.

Tesler told such a detailed lie about how he and his partners met with informant Alex White in the afternoon of the raid that he came across as very credible, Robuck said.

“His demeanor was very convincing,” the FBI agent said.

The story matched the one that had been told by his partners. Smith, who lied to the magistrate to get the warrant, prepared a script for the detectives to go over to get their stories straight in the days following the shootings, Robuck said.

“Did you ever give [Tesler] a chance to come clean and tell the truth?” prosecutor Peter Odom asked Robuck of the first FBI interview with Tesler on Dec. 7, 2006.

“He said he didn’t think there was anything he wanted to correct,” Robuck said.

But White, the informant, had contacted the FBI to tell them he was being pressured to lie for the officers and Junnier, unknown to Tesler and Smith, soon confessed to the FBI.

On Dec. 21, 2006, Tesler told the FBI he would cooperate and gave them a lengthy interview after the holidays on Jan. 4, 2007.

Tesler said he went along with the cover-up story — that a reliable drug buy had been made at the house earlier this day — because “he was the low man on the totem pole,” Robuck said.

“Did he ever express the concern that no one would believe him over a senior member of the team?” asked Tesler’s lawyer, William McKenney, who was at the interview.

“He did say that,” Robuck said.

Tesler said he knew Smith had lied to get the warrant when it was read to the eight-member narcotics team shortly before it raided the Johnston house.

He blamed Smith for planting marijuana in Johnston’s basement to help justify the raid and claimed he had shaken his head “No” and walked out of the basement when Smith showed him the dope.

But he acknowledged going along with Smith’s claim that cocaine seized from the low-level dealer earlier that day had been the cocaine bought from the Johnston house.

Tesler also was with Smith when they destroyed the rest of the marijuana seized earlier in the day at a different location because part of it was planted at Johnston’s house and the samples could be linked through testing, Robuck said.

“They destroyed evidence,” Odom said.

“Correct,” Robuck said.

— In the State of Washington, the FBI and US Attorney routinely refuse to investigate public corruption by VERY high ranking state officials that they absolutely know is going on. —

>>I believe that. I think government officials are rarely prosecuted, because it makes the government look bad, and they are all in cahoots.

But my comment was about the number of cops who go after innocent people in order to jazz up their adrenaline or their records. I don’t think a majority of them do that. If 8 out of 100 pull the sort of stuff described in this case, I would guess the prosecutor would only go after the ones that could not be avoided, maybe 1 of the 8. There might be a summary of prosecution of government officials (law enforcement in particular), and my sense is that this is the tip of the iceberg, but that the iceberg isn’t close to a majority of all the water (to use a lame analogy).<<

Believe me they are not ALL in cahoots.
The ones who get prosecuted have to be served up on a platter though because of the bad P.R. that goes along with it.
The administrators of police agencies for the most part would rather crucify someone privately than allow it to tarnish the whole department.
One guy goes bad and the whole department is marked as bad. But that is wrong. Yet the perception of that is why they try to keep it quest and deal with it in house.

I know some guys think that they are above the law, some just do their jobs and collect a paycheck and try not to get involved figuring it won’t matter anyway and then they don;t have problems.

Then there are some who think that they want to see civilians treated as they would like to see their families treated and they abhor corruption in any form. These guys are the ones who end up trying to the right thing all the way around and pay a heavy price for it.

They get branded by other cops- lose their friends, get put in bad situations, are considered “boat rockers” etc.
But they manage to keep the majority of corrupt stuff in check regardless.

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