A federal jury on Tuesday found two Chicago cops, David Salgado and Xavier Elizondo, guilty of all counts in a corruption case.
Both men were convicted on each of the five counts they faced in connection with using bogus information to secure search warrants to steal cash and drugs.
When the trial began early this month, defense attorneys described Elizondo and Salgado as crime fighters wrongly accused of a criminal conspiracy that included bogus search warrants and the alleged theft of $4,200 from a rental car searched in January 2018.
Last week, Elizondo also took the stand and testified that he once portrayed himself on the street as a corrupt police officer. He said it helped him cultivate informants.
“There’s some trickery involved in it,” Elizondo said. “It’s the nature of law enforcement working with informants. It’s the nature of the beast.”
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Franzblau said the pair “are corrupt Chicago police officers who betrayed their badges and used their police powers to lie, cheat and steal.”
The feds accused Elizondo and Salgado of abusing a system that let cops use anonymous “John Doe” informants. An informant working for the two officers gave false information to Cook County judges to get warrants that let the cops search properties where they stole money, drugs and cartons of cigarettes, according to the indictment. They also were accused of sharing the illegal proceeds with informants.
Prosecutors used undercover audio and video recordings to help make their case against the officers. The feds caught Elizondo telling an informant “I’m the man who makes the deals and cuts the deals.” They also caught him later complaining “it would have been a good Christmas” if cameras hadn’t been found during a search of a purported stash house.
After the officers realized in January 2018 that they were under investigation, Elizondo was caught telling Salgado on the phone, “OK, well you know what to do right? . . . Just relocate everything, alright?” Later, Elizondo allegedly told him to “just make sure whatever you have in your house isn’t there no more, you know what I mean?”
Crucial to the case was a search warrant signed by the now embattled Cook County Circuit Judge Mauricio Araujo outside Smith & Wollensky in River North. The judge had been at a dinner party there on Dec. 19, 2017, when Salgado sought him out by text message to sign the warrant.
Araujo faces unrelated claims he made improper advances toward a female police officer and a female court reporter and demeaned a female prosecutor. A Chicago Sun-Times review found Araujo approved nearly half of the search warrants issued to Salgado’s gang crimes unit over three years. But he has not been accused of wrongdoing with the officers.
Elizondo and Salgado used the warrant from Araujo to search the purported stash house on the West Side. But prosecutors say they landed the warrant using a tipster who offered bogus information with hopes of divvying up what turned out to be $15,000 hidden inside.
The FBI had planted the money there, along with surveillance cameras. When the officers discovered the recording equipment, they decided to inventory the cash properly.
Then, in January 2018, a tipster working for the FBI told Elizondo about cash and drugs inside a rental car parked at the Carlton Inn near Midway Airport. The tipster told Elizondo a key had been tucked inside the rear bumper of the car.
The FBI had hidden $18,200 in two Burger King bags in the car, according to court records.
Jurors saw video of the search of the car, in which officers can be seen first shining a flashlight underneath it before finally popping open the trunk. Elizondo can then be seen rummaging around inside. However, the footage is grainy, and Elizondo defense attorney Michael Clancy intensely questioned an FBI special agent who used it to allege Elizondo had discovered the cash.
After searching the car with other officers, they eventually took the car to the Homan Square police station, where Salgado reported $14,000 was found inside, records show.
The next day, Lt. Timothy Moore visited Homan Square to tow the car. Moore worked with the FBI in the Chicago Police Department’s internal affairs division and visited the station with an FBI special agent. During the visit he ran into Salgado, who complained that he’d seized the car as part of an investigation.
Moore told Salgado he was from internal affairs — and needed the car for his own investigation.
“(Salgado) took a step back,” Moore testified. “He seemed shocked.”
Sentencing for the men is sent for Jan. 23. U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang declined to have the men detained until then, saying prosecutors would have file written motions arguing their case for detention.
