Two Cleveland-area cops have been sentenced for stealing 1000’s of {dollars} over a one-year interval from drivers they pulled over throughout visitors stops.
Former East Cleveland officers Willie Warner-Sims, 32, and his associate Alfonzo Cole, 35, each pleaded responsible to 4 counts of theft and one rely of theft in workplace.
Sims and Cole robbed six victims between July 2020 and July 2021 and swiped a complete of $14,781, authorities say. Cole additionally took two firearms.
Sims was sentenced to 2 years in jail. Cole will spend two years and 6 months behind bars and should pay a $40,000 effective.
The pair have been caught after a 21-year-old man filed a criticism to the East Cleveland Police Division stating that they took $4,000 from him throughout a visitors cease at a fuel station on July 8, 2021. That man was on his option to a funeral residence to spend the cash on his mom’s funeral companies, based on Cleveland.com.
Sims and Cole have been subsequently arrested the day after the person reported the theft.
A yr earlier than that incident, Sims stole $3,850 from somebody after responding to a name about an altercation at an East Cleveland fuel station. He took the cash, arrested the sufferer, and had the sufferer’s automotive towed.
In September 2020, Cole performed a visitors cease and stole $850 from the motive force and about $400 value of suspected marijuana. Then, he issued the motive force a visitors quotation that included his signature and a cast signature of a police sergeant who wasn’t on the scene.
Two months later, Sims took $1,300 from a 34-year-old’s automotive throughout a visitors cease. Sims ordered the sufferer out of the car and when the sufferer returned, he seen the cash was gone. The sufferer informed the decide he didn’t need to initially report the crime as a result of medicine have been additionally within the automotive.
On July 8, 2021, the identical day Sims and Cole stole $4,000 from the person attempting to pay for his mom’s funeral bills, Sims performed one other visitors cease and stole $781 from one other individual. That sufferer reported that Sims stopped him and informed him to step out of the automotive. He refused, so Sims “roughed him up a little bit,” based on his assertion. Sims positioned the sufferer behind his police car, then “ransacked” his automotive and stole the cash in addition to some marijuana edibles.
Cuyahoga County Frequent Pleas Choose Michael J. Russo informed Sims that his actions “disgraced” hard-working officers.
“The one individual that the general public ought to be capable to believe in … could be your emergency companies, your cops, your firefighters, your EMTs,” Russo mentioned. “You’ve shaken the boldness of the general public within the prison justice system and the belief they put in cops.”
Russo informed Cole throughout his sentencing that he “broken everyone locally.”
“When a[n] particular person who’s a police officer has taken that oath, he, in essence, is in a prison class of his personal,” Russo mentioned. “He, in impact, is a traitor to the system. He’s far worse than your regular burglar or robber or prison.”
Sims apologized to his family members in courtroom, saying he was sorry “for placing myself on this place.”
These arrests and convictions stem from a department-wide investigation into the East Cleveland Police as authorities look into allegations of corruption. Police Chief Scott Gardner faces fees linked to fraud, theft, cash laundering, and information tampering — crimes that he denies committing. Greater than a dozen present and former officers with the division additionally face quite a few fees.
