Here is a picture of Brad Perico in our business telling us his story.
Newsbrief: Corrupt Cop of the Week II 2/21/03
This week we have two winners in the Corrupt Cop of the Week Competition. The first winner is the Lawrence, KS, Police Department's star drug cop Officer Stuart "Mike" Peck. Peck was named Officer of the Year last year by a local Veterans of Foreign Wars post and is well-known among local defense attorneys for his role in numerous drug busts in recent years. But he was slapped down last week by Douglas County District Court Judge Michael Malone, who found that Peck lied about informants in order to obtain search warrants in drug cases.
Now Peck has been suspended from duty pending further investigation, and local prosecutors are starting to drop cases in which he was involved. "As far as we're concerned, this officer is not available to testify on criminal cases at this time," District Attorney Christine Kenney told the Lawrence Journal-World on January 28. "More than a dozen" cases will be dismissed, said Kenney, adding that the situation was "unfortunate" and would "cause a lot of hardship" -- presumably for prosecutors, not defendants.Peck's methods aroused the Judge Malone's ire after Peck assured the judge that the credibility of an informant he used in an affidavit to obtain a search warrant was "unquestioned," when the informant actually had a lengthy felony criminal history and was -- gasp -- a known drug user.
Peck's testimony led to the court approving a November 3, 2001 search warrant against local resident James D. Hawkins. On January 24, Judge Malone suppressed the evidence -- including marijuana, cocaine and paraphernalia -- seized from Hawkins' home, saying he had no choice because Peck had lied.
In seeking the 2001 warrant, Peck assured the court that the anonymous informant was "credible" and that his criminal record included only a few "traffic-type things, driving on a suspended license... a lot of domestic-type things. A lot of failure to appears or failure to complies. There was a theft." But Judge Malone later found out that the informant had three drunk-driving convictions, two felony theft convictions, a forgery conviction and a bad check conviction.
Malone also found that Peck had engineered the dismissal of speeding tickets and a domestic violence charge for the informant, and had failed to arrest him when he was found with marijuana during another traffic stop.Defense attorneys were cheered by the ruling. "As chairman of the Douglas County Criminal Defense Bar Association, I can assure you that, as a group, we've been concerned about Officer Peck's work for quite some time," said attorney Jonathan Becker. "But for now, it appears that Officer Peck quite clearly crossed the line. You don't lie in an affidavit that's submitted to the court," Becker said. "That's a very, very big deal"
PS. How can one cop could be fired and almost 40 cases tossed out of court and the dirty cops partner is still on the Lawrence police dept.?
Was officer Mcatee Officer's Peck's partner?
Brad Perico was the informant officer Peck was using (without his partner) and Brad contends that officer Peck was set up by the other officers on the drug task force.
Brad said that Peck was used as a scape goat and that the supervisor knew about the corners the drug tack force were cutting but when the crap hit the fan the blame was tossed over in officers Peck's court to take the blame all alone.
Brad Perico also said that Lawrence police officers Rantz and Jay Bialek wanted him to help them by selling the yellow house stolen property and the cops were going to pay Brad 50.00 to bring stolen property into the yellow house.
Brad interviewed with the Neighbors investigator where he signed a statement stating the cops tried to get him to help them because he had some tickets they could take care of for him in addition to the 50.00.
The officers told Brad that the FBI had him on surveillance from the fire station across the street taking a drill into the yellow house, Brad said that officer Bialek told him they knew he was in trouble and they would take care of the 6 tickets he had if he helped them and they told him that they knew Brad new what was going down in the yellow house.
Brad said he refused to help the cops because the business owners were his friends and the the detective's supervisor Terik Katib hated him and the cops never came through with their part of the deal in the past.
I can not believe these cops would try to use this guy as a informant after the judge jammed up the cops for using him and had all of those cases tossed out of court.
"No single snow flake ever claimed responsiblity for an avalanche!"
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