Posted on 05/05/2005 6:45:56 PM PDT by freepatriot32
Four detectives allegedly stole $100,000 worth of marijuana during a drug raid at St Kilda Marina then conspired to sell it, a jury was told yesterday.
The County Court heard that the four men, from St Kilda police station, intercepted the drugs after a tip-off.
Crown prosecutor Colin Hillman, SC, told the court that a drug dealer, Daniel May, had allegedly arranged to deliver the cannabis, from South Australia, to an associate at the marina in May 1999.
Mr Hillman said the cannabis was wrapped in vacuum packs and moved from Mr May's Patterson Lakes home to the marina using a four-wheel-drive with a false bottom.
Mr Hillman claimed the accused then took the cannabis, and the drugs were later sold.
"They would have been supremely confident they would never be found out," he told the 12-member jury. "They were entitled to think they wouldn't be found out. If you take drugs from a drug dealer, who is he going to complain to?"
If not for recordings made by officers investigating the 1998 murders of Sergeant Gary Silk and Senior Constable Rodney Miller, said Mr Hillman, the alleged offences would have had the "merest chance" of becoming known.
Detective Sergeant Glenn Robert Saunders, 44, Detective Senior Constables Peter John Alexander, 37, and Stephen Russell Campbell, 35 - now all suspended - and former Detective Sergeant David John Waters, 44, have pleaded not guilty to charges including theft and conspiring to traffic cannabis.
In a recorded phone call, dubbed by Mr Hillman as the "downfall of the accused", Saunders and the suspected criminal discuss meeting at the marina.
The voice of the suspected criminal says: "The meeting's going down at the St Kilda Marina... I said, 'listen, I'm not going to do business with three or four c---s. I am just going to do business with you' ...I told him I am coming unarmed."
When Saunders asked the man what the drug dealer's name was, he replied: "His name is Danny and he has been in trouble too."
The phone call was the first of many that will be played in the three-week trial, Mr Hillman said. He said the officers used false information in their diaries and notebooks, saying that they were at the marina but that no cannabis had been found.
"That conduct was engaged in to try to satisfy Mr May that the police seizure on May 10 was proper, legitimate," Mr Hillman said. "Designed, we say, to avoid the potential discovery of what really happened."
Saunders' defence lawyer, Duncan Allen, SC, told the jury: "Mr Saunders' response is simple. There was no cannabis in the truck. He didn't steal it. He stole nothing."
Alexander's defence lawyer, Andrew McKenna, said evidence given from Mr May would be "heavily disputed" and "hotly denied". He said the evidence from the man taped in phone conversations with Saunders was from a "manipulative, deceitful criminal".
"What occurred was a typical interception search carried out by police in the ordinary execution of their duties... who unfortunately uncovered no evidence of any contraband," he said.
The trial, before Judge Jim Duggan, continues.
ping
ping
So9
Did you ever try to live on a cop's pay?
TRAINING DAY
Most cops i known became cops because they couldn't really do much else. That's just ones i've known so i don't want to stereotype.
"Most cops i known became cops because they couldn't really do much else. That's just ones i've known so i don't want to stereotype"
LOL!
I'll allow that - to explain it, but not to excuse it.
"Did you ever try to live on a cop's pay?"
They make more than the average worker makes.
You would not make the same statement about
a teacher that learned about a student dealing and
stole and then sold what he stole. The teacher
would lose their job and be locked up, not suspended.
We either have a bunch of cops on this thread or my sense of humor doesn't fit.
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