Posted: 6/8/2007 7:21:55 AM EDT
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from: www.wboc.com/Global/story.asp?S=6620337&nav=MXEFM7m7 Salisbury Cop Charged With Rape Out on Bond 06/06/2007 12:41 PM ET; Updated 4:03 PM ET SALISBURY, Md.- A Salisbury police officer who is accused of sexually assaulting a woman while on duty Memorial Day weekend is out of jail after posting $150,000 bond.  Tracy Ross Sparpaglione Tracy Ross Sparpaglione, 26, of Laurel, Del., was indicted by the Wicomico County Grand Jury Monday for allegedly breaking into the Salisbury home of a 19-year-old woman on May 26. The state had asked at Wednesday's bail hearing that he either be denied bond or that bond be set at no less than $250,000. But a judge decided to set bond at $150,000. Sparpaglione is charged with second-degree rape, third- and fourth-degree sex offense, misconduct in office and first- and third-degree burglary charges. He was fired on May 30. Sparpaglione faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted of second-degree rape. No trial date has been set yet. |
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from:www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=96758&provider=top Atlanta Cop's Rape Trial Set for July Atlanta Police Officer Lamar Gavin's attorneys hope they can persuade a Fulton County Superior Court Judge to let him out on bond soon. They met with Judge Stephanie Manis and prosecutors Thursday morning to discuss the status of the rape case against Gavin, 26. So far, the judge has refused bond, fearing he might intimidate witnesses against him.  One of them is a woman who has gone into hiding after claiming Gavin raped her last July. Twice before she had complained to the Atlanta Police Department that Gavin refused to leave her alone. Then he supposedly broke into her apartment, set up a video camera and taped himself raping her. But Gavin's attorneys have seen the video and claim it proves the sex was consensual. "You don't see a sexual predator by any means," said attorney Phinia Aten. She claims her client is simply an immature rookie who's being framed. The Atlanta Police Department tried to fire Gavin last November for unrelated off duty conduct. He's been permantly barred from three bars in the Virginia-Highland neighborhood for supposedly outrageous and intimidating behavior, including waving a pistol and claiming to be a robber. The city's Civil Service Board overruled the firing and had Gavin suspended for 30 days instead. Friday morning his attorneys will meet with Police Chief Richard Pennington to discuss Gavin's possible suspension on the rape charge. Gavin's rape trial is set for July. |
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from:cbs4.com/topstories/local_story_135221435.html Text Messages Gathered In Alleged Cop Rape Case Investigators Say Cop Arrested Is A Serial Rapist A Second Woman Says She Was Raped By Officer Image Brian Andrews Reporting  (CBS4) MIAMI BEACH Police seized t-shirts, sheets, airplane tickets, and a computer from the apartment of a Miami Police officer accused of being a serial rapist, all to be used as possible evidence in the case they are building against him. Prosecutors subpoenaed all of Oficer Michael Ragusa’s cell phone records showing he called and sent text messages to some of his alleged victims. "Good night, whether or not I get the opportunity to get to know you, you are beautiful and I hope the best for you,” read one of text messages they have gathered. That's the text prosecutors say officer Ragusa sent one of his victims hours after he sexually assaulted her. It’s part of 600 pages of evidence the State Attorney’s office is turning over to the defense in the case. After reading through some of it CBS4’s Brian Andrews spoke to one of the alleged victims and her boyfriend. She’s still shaken up over the incident and has moved away from the area. Prosecutors say there is surveillance tape from an ATM machine that shows the Miami cop driving the streets of Miami Beach after his shift ended at 11pm. They say he was driving in his cruiser at 3 a.m. looking for sex. The camera supposedly captured an image of one of his victims, moments before she's forced into his cruiser. Ragusa is in the Miami-Dade County jail, charged with raping three women. However, prosecutors say there could be as many as eight victims and that more charges are coming. They’re even investigating reports that the officer forced male prostitutes into having sex as well. Attorney Milton Hirsch said none of this is true and that Ragusa has only wanted to help people using his badge and comes from a decent family. Among the evidence collected by investigators is a black hair found in a Bible inside Ragusa’s patrol car, which may belong to one of his victims, and underlined passages from a self-help book that talks about overcoming temptation. (© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.) |
I consider it to be a public service. Rationale: People who are in positions of power and public trust should be held to a higher standard. Every time an LEO breaks the law, and a news article is published. Posting it does several things: (1.) It sets up a feedback loop within the LEO community to hold themselves accountable. The worst thing is to not post it. This will lull LEOs into thinking that such criminal behaviors committed by their collegues is non-existent. And that an LEO can do no wrong. Being an LEO is a shitty job. Being an Honest LEO, doing the right thing and crossing the blue line, can be a career killer. You have my sympathy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- from:www.northcountrygazette.org/news/2007/05/17/offender_released/ Ex-Cop Sex Offender Released Early ERIE COUNTY, OHIO—Who says there’s not special treatment in the criminal justice system depending on who you are and/or who you know?  Just ask Paris Hilton who thinks she should be able to drive with a suspended license without any consequences. In northern Ohio and particularly in Erie County, apparently convicted and accused sex offenders who are ex-cops and the brother of a judge are getting more consideration than judicial whistleblowers and individuals who are alleging that public officers have been involved in sexual misconduct. Seven moths since the adopted brother of Erie County Common Pleas Court Judge Roger E. Binette was charged with allegedly molesting a 10-year old girl, there still has been no judge appointed to hear the case of Donald Binette and no efforts to prosecute the matter, leaving it wide open for the defense to move for dismissal due to violation of his speedy trial rights. Donald C. Binette, 41, of Wellington, was indicted last September, charged with third degree felony gross sexual imposition for allegedly molesting a then 10-year girl on Sept. 16, 2006. He’s been accused of molesting two different girls, ages 10 and 13, on two separate occasions. Roger Binette, Erie County administrative judge responsible for the assignment of judges in the county, removed himself from the case. So far, Chief Justice Thomas Moyer apparently hasn’t felt motivated to assign a judge to hear the molestation case. As administrative judge, Binette was the Erie County judge responsible for assigning a new judge to the May 2005 charges against Elsebeth Baumgartner for charges that she stole her own corporate vehicle, felony fleeing and resisting arrest, all premised on a supposed outstanding warrant which no one would produce. Although retired visiting judge Richard Knepper recused himself from the Erie County Baumgartner case first last Aug. 18 and then again on Aug. 21, after he revoked her bond in Erie County, Binette then delayed assigning a new judge to the Baumgartner case so that a bond hearing could be held or motions filed in the case. Eventually retired visiting judge Ronald Bowman, 77, was assigned to the Baumgartner case. Donald Binette had been scheduled to appear for a pre-trial hearing in January but the hearing had to be canceled because as of four months after the indictment, there had been no judge assigned to the case. Dean R. Holman of Medina County, is acting as a special prosecutor.Last June, Bowman sentenced former Sandusky police officer James Fitzpatrick to three years in prison after the ex-cop pleaded guilty to four felony counts of having sex with a minor. Bowman, who was the judge in the Baumgartner grand theft case, was assigned to the Fitzpatrick case by Judge Roger Binette, former drug task force prosecutor in Erie County. Dean Holman, the special prosecutor in the Binette case, was the special prosecutor in the Fitzpatrick case. In a shocking move on Thursday, following a hearing at which it appears the prosecutor did not oppose the defense motion, Bowman signed an early release for Fitzpatrick after he had served less than a year of the three year prison term. He was placed on probation and must pay a $2,000 fine. Despite having been convicted of four felony counts of having sex with a minor, reportedly Fitzpatrick is not a designated sex offender and does not have to register as such. While Fitzpatrick had essentially been convicted of statutory rape, his victim said the sex wasn’t consensual and that she had been raped. Binette had sentenced Michael Brummet to nine years in prison last June for two counts of first-degree felony rape, second-degree felony illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material or performance and third-degree felony gross sexual imposition for the rape of a 15-year-old girl in sharp contrast to the sentence imposed for Fitzpatrick. The Fitpatrick-Binette-Baumgartner case has shocking similarities with the same judges involved but Baumgartner has been more harshly treated, dealt a three year prison sentence in a case rife with police, prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, then two men charged with sexual offenses. Bowman refused to allow Baumgartner to withdraw a plea of no contest after essentially teaming up with prosecutor Daniel Kasaris of the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office to coerce a plea. The arresting police agency in the Baumgartner case is the Bay View Police Chief of which Helen Prosowski is police chief. Prosowski maintains that she was trying to execute an arrest warrant on Baumgartner for an alleged probation violation in case which had been dismissed but Prosowski has never been able to produce a copy of the warrant.A 15-year-old girl, the victim of what she says was sexual assault by a Fitzpatrick, not consensual sex, has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Toldeo against the Sandusky Police Department and police chief Prosowski, the same police officer who executed the alleged warrant against Baumgartner and tried to break the window the car in which Baumgartner was sitting and ultimately drove. Prosowski is also employed as a full-time detective with the Sandusky Police Department. The teenager was sexually abused by former Sandusky police Officer Fitzpatrick. The girl’s attorney, John Swansinger, wrote in the lawsuit that “SPD systems were such that one of its officers committed at least 10 criminal sexual acts against a minor while the officer was in uniform, while he was on duty in broad daylight, at a police facility, in a high crime area, without anyone noticing”. Fitzpatrick pleaded guilty last Juneto four counts in a plea agreement and Prosowski testified, asking the judge for leniency for Fitzpatrick. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f8TruACP2k Fitzpatrick was found guilty of abusing the 15-year-old girl in a police station in 2003 after she met him in a police ride-along program. Fitzpatrick was sentenced last June 22 by Bowman to three years in prison, pleading guilty to fifth degree felony unlawful sexual conduct in order to satisfy the 10 counts against him. The girl had alleged that he had raped her on 10 separate occasions. Sandusky detectives Prosowski and Mark Volz are accused in the federal lawsuit of showing favoritism towards Fitzpatrick by not pushing for rape charges. “They ignored undisputed evidence and sought special treatment for Fitzpatrick in an attempt to protect Fitzpatrick from punishment”, Swasinger wrote in the lawsuit. “(Prosowski and Volz) recklessly or intentionally ignored the admission of the use of force and, so they could charge Fitzpatrick with the least possible crime, failed to ask about the element of force during his polygraph examination”.Now Bowman has ordered Fitzpatrick’s early release from prison after he served less than a year of the three year term. The suit accuses Prosowski and others in the Sandusky Police Department who arrested Baumgartner in May 2005, for failing to properly train officers in handling sexual abuse claims and allowing an environment where officers are afraid to report complaints against fellow officers.Baumgartner has long maintained that there exists a protection of sex crimes by the politically connected in Erie County and that when she blew the whistle and brought forth allegations of such, that connected individuals used the criminal justice system, and the office of prosecutor Kevin Baxter, to retaliate against her. In one instance, she points to the deal that special prosecutor Daniel Kasaris sealed in the case of former Republican Erie County Commissioner Harold Butcher, then 69, a former school superintendent, who was able to plead to a first degree misdemeanor and receive 30 days house arrest for the stalking of a 14-year-old black girl in 2001. During the prosecution of Baumgartner for contempt in Erie County, she said that Judge Knepper and special prosecutor Karasis became highly agitated when she stated on the record that she had been sentenced and had already served more days for contempt than Harold Butcher had served for stalking a black 14-year-old girl for sex. Butcher had pleaded guilty in 2002 to a misdemeanor charge of menacing by stalking in a plea deal arranged by Karasis and Erie County prosecutor Kevin Baxter. In exchange for a guilty plea, felony charges of compelling prostitution for allegedly soliciting sex from the girl were dropped and Butcher, who refused to resign from his public post, was sentenced to 30 days of house arrest, fined $1,000. He was allowed to attend regular and special meetings of the commission and to go to medical appointments and scheduled meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous twice a week. Baumgartner has been sentenced to eight years in prison in Cuyahoga County on charges including falsification, as Kasaris claims that her allegations are false. According to the public record, Baumgartner’s allegations about favoritism involving the prosecution of the politically connected for sex crimes appears to be right on target. 5-17-07 |
The frequency with which guys like you post these items makes it appear to be more commonplace than it is. Go ahead; i'll await your next thread on rapist plumbers, arsonist carpenters, molesting military personnel, etc. Hey, they are out there, you can find examples of any deviation in any career field if you dig long enough. |
Last time I checked, plumbers, carpenters, and army dudes aren't authorized to kick in my front door at 4 in the morning and point guns at me and haul me to jail, so yes, I and others like me are VERY concerned with police malfeasance. |
Plumbers and military personnel don't have legal or quasilegal power over me. Cops do, so it's only natural that there will be more attention directed at them. |
Chief Confirms Brown Shot Twice In Back  Sgt. Michael Olsen was suspended for 60 days for his action during a 2002 street fight Cop In East Austin Shooting Suspended Before Law enforcement asks to withhold autopsy details from public Friend of yours? |
No Cop Bashing Here: Just Posting the News |
Why is this cop bashing? Posting news is cop bashing? |
Take a page from the military threads rape and murder by soldiers on civilians is always condemed but in the police threads there is no shortage of police officers who will come on to this site and defend criminals in police uniforms. When soldiers rob banks and rape citizens you don't see soldiers posting responses that justify the actions of criminals in uniform. If you want to change the image of police officers on this site then start posting stories of cops who arrest scum bag cops in their own departments. Or better yet start posting stories that inspire respect for police officers. Put up or shut up. |
Hey, nobody is more critical of bad cops than good cops. It was the Police who made these cases against other LEOs...not posters on arf.com. This is not about good or bad cops. It is a few juvenile posters on this forum that enjoy bashing LEOs, nothing more. They could care less about any "public service" and they know it. They are just too cowardly to man up and say it out in the open and because of that, they hide behind a veil of posting police corruption stories as "public service". It is a cowards way to bash the police, nothing more. |
Yes. And a better more correct shoot you are not going to find, regardless what the newspaper claims. A good man whose life I value a lot more than yours for example. |
Remember if you are upset with how people view police officers it is up to you as a police officer to change their minds with posts and stories of your own that can change that imagine. Instead you come onto this site and whine like bitch every time someone posts a story about criminals in uniform. You act like a baby not a cop I have seen tougher E-1s who had more intestinal fortitude than you. |