Facing criminal charges of perjury and misconduct, a veteran Baltimore City police officer testified yesterday that she accidentally left out crucial details from court documents in which she claimed to have witnessed a man stash drugs and cash in a bush.
The bag contained fake drugs and cash planted at the scene by internal affairs detectives conducting a random integrity sting, which is designed to see whether police officers pocket drugs or money. The trial is scheduled to resume today.
Police Agent Jacqueline A. Folio, 41, took the stand in her own defense in Baltimore Circuit Court on charges of perjury and misconduct in office. She is accused of lying in court documents after responding to a call for reported drug dealing, finding the fake stash, and then arresting an 18-year-old on charges of drug possession.
In her statement of probable cause, Folio wrote that she "observed one of the three [men] described as wearing a dark colored baseball cap, white T-shirt and jean shorts place an object onto the ground behind a bush." She later found the object, which contained the fake drugs and money.
Yesterday, Folio testified that she did not mean to give the impression that she had witnessed the man place the items in the bush. Folio testified she did not see the man stash the items. Instead, she should have written that she had observed a man whom she believed was the same one described over the police radio as having earlier hidden the bag, according to her testimony.
"What happened that day was good faith on my part," testified Folio, a 14-year veteran who once trained officers in defensive police tactics. "It was a run-on sentence. There was clearly never any criminal intent on my part."
On cross examination, prosecutor A. Thomas Krehely Jr. , who called the officer's actions "corrupt and willful," asked Folio why she did not catch her mistakes when she wrote a second report well after filing her initial statement of probable cause.
The two documents contain nearly identical language.
Folio said she had been trained to use nearly identical language in her reports.
The officer's lawyer, Clarke F. Ahlers, argued that the sting - which was videotaped - was flawed from the beginning and that detectives who conducted it played a cruel game with an innocent bystander by allowing him to be falsely arrested.
