BALTIMORE _ An eighth Baltimore police officer has been indicted on federal racketeering charges, with federal prosecutors alleging he "stole money from victims, some of whom had not committed crimes, swore out false affidavits and submitted false official incident reports."
He did so while overseeing and covering for other officers committing similar crimes, prosecutors alleged.
Sgt. Thomas Allers, 49, of Linthicum Heights, a member of the Baltimore Police Department since 1996, was arrested Wednesday on nine counts of robbery and extortion, after his Aug. 24 indictment was unsealed.
Allers oversaw the Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force, a special unit that investigated gun crimes, from 2013 until mid-2016. Seven other members of the unit were indicted in March on similar racketeering charges, accused of robbing people, filing false court paperwork and submitting fraudulent overtime claims.
Prosecutors allege that Allers stole more than $90,000 in a series of robberies, and that one resident he stole from was subsequently shot and killed "because he could not repay a drug-related debt."
They also allege Allers covered for the other indicted officers by filing false incident reports, and "obstructed law enforcement by alerting other members of the (gun task force) about potential investigations of their criminal conduct."
"As disheartening as the conduct outlined in this indictment may be, the community needs to have confidence that dedicated law enforcement will not tolerate it," acting Maryland U.S. Attorney Stephen M. Schenning said in a statement.
Allers was led in handcuffs Wednesday afternoon into a federal courtroom in Baltimore. There, he answered questions from U.S. Magistrate Judge A. David Copperthite with "Yes, sir" and "No, sir," and told Copperthite that he understood the charges against him and the maximum penalties he faces if found guilty.
He was then led out of the courtroom. His attorney, Gary Proctor, declined to comment. Two women in the courtroom who said they were members of Allers' family declined to speak about him or the case. He was due back in court Thursday morning for a detention hearing.
On Wednesday, police confirmed that Allers had been suspended since March 1, the day the other officers were indicted.
"I condemn any and all criminal activity that erodes our trust with the community," Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said in a statement. "We are and have been embedded with the FBI/Baltimore field office's Public Corruption Task Force. This partnership ensures that police officers that commit criminal misconduct will face the certainty of accountability."
Allers left the Gun Trace Task Force in June 2016 and was assigned to a Drug Enforcement Administration task force, the DEA confirmed.
Two of the seven officers indicted in March have pleaded guilty to the charges against them. Others have pleaded not guilty. Two have scheduled rearraignments, where they could change their not-guilty pleas to guilty pleas. One has not entered a plea.
The March indictments led Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby's office to drop 77 criminal cases that relied on the testimony of the officers, and more than another 100 are currently under review.
Mosby's office could not immediately be reached for comment about the indictment of the eighth officer, and whether it would lead to additional dropped cases against criminal defendants in the city.
In the indictment, federal prosecutors in Schenning's office outlined several incidents in which they allege Allers committed crimes.
In one incident in March 2014, prosecutors allege Allers was with two other city officers executing a warrant in Baltimore County when they found "a drawer full of money" that was "bundled in multiple stacks" in an upstairs bedroom. Allers allegedly told the other officers that the homeowner "wouldn't miss a stack," or words to that effect, and took some of the cash from the drawer, prosecutors said. Afterward, the other two officers and Allers' adult son, who was with them, each took cash from the drawer as well, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors would not comment further on the allegation that Allers' son, who was not named, was involved in the alleged theft, or whether he faces criminal charges.
In another alleged incident, while serving a search warrant at a Baltimore home in early April 2015, prosecutors said Allers and other officers found $6,000 that was "a combination of money that the homeowners had made buying and selling used cars and a tax refund the wife had received."
Prosecutors said Allers and the other officers stole $5,700, and "then filed a false incident report stating that only $233 had been seized."
In another incident in early March 2016, prosecutors allege Allers and other officers executed a search warrant in Baltimore at the home of a resident who "had $200 in her purse, which her daughter had received the previous day during her birthday party, $900 to pay her rent for that month, $300 to pay down the amount of money she owed Baltimore Gas & Electric for utilities and $8,000 which was the proceeds of drug sales."
Allers is quoted as saying to another officer at the scene, "Here is some lunch money," before giving him a portion of the cash. Prosecutors say he then "approved the false report that stated that only $1,624 had been seized from home, when in fact, he had stolen more than $7,000."
In a third incident in late April 2016, prosecutors allege Allers and other officers "robbed a residence" after arresting a person who lived there.
"Allers approved a false incident report which failed to report that any money had been taken from the residence, when in fact he and his co-conspirators stole more than $10,000," prosecutors said. "Following this robbery, one of the residents was shot and killed because he could not repay a drug-related debt."
The indictment of Allers is not the first time prosecutors added charges in the broader case. In July, they filed additional robbery charges against three of the seven officers initially charged and new charges against two civilians, accusing them of impersonating police officers to commit an armed robbery.
The alleged 2016 crimes occurred at a time of intense scrutiny of the Baltimore Police Department, when U.S. Department of Justice investigators were reviewing the department's actions and policies. Last summer, the Justice Department reported that city officers practiced discriminatory and unconstitutional policing that included conducting unlawful stops and using excessive force, particularly in poor, predominantly black neighborhoods. The city is now under a consent decree mandating sweeping police reforms.
In recent weeks, the Police Department has also been dealing with the fallout from a series of body-camera videos that prosecutors and defense attorneys have flagged as questionable. Defense attorneys have suggested that some of the videos show officers planting drugs on criminal defendants, though police deny those accusations. Prosecutors have already dropped or are reviewing hundreds of criminal cases related to the officers involved in those videos.
Allers made a salary of $93,244 in 2016, though he took home $119,993 with overtime pay, according to a city salary database. In 1997, when Allers was a 28-year-old patrolman in the Southern District with just nine months on the force, he fatally shot a 40-year-old man who police said lunged for Allers' weapon after stabbing two women inside a rowhouse.
Allers could face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison if convicted on any of the charges.
