By Matt Agorist
Bakersfield, CA — As TFTP reported in 2017, in a massive blow to justice and a nail in the coffin that is police accountability, two former cops who pleaded guilty to arresting people for drugs, stealing those drugs, and selling them for themselves, avoided jail despite their guilty pleas. As the Free Thought Project reported, former sheriff’s deputies Logan August and Derrick Penney pleaded guilty to a massive conspiracy in which they would arrest people for selling drugs only to turn around and use those drugs to enrich themselves.
These two bad cops received probation only, for their crimes.
After getting off with a wrist slap, last year August was charged — again — with 15 felony counts, including conspiracy and burglary, in connection with stealing drugs from a sheriff’s storage locker and putting them back on the street.
This recent investigation began last year and ended on Thursday with August and Penny pleading no contest to the charges.
As ABC 23 reports:
The investigation was initiated following a plea deal between August and Derrick Penny, another former KCSO deputy, and Federal Prosecutors of the United States Attorney’s Office.
The DA’s Office said upon learning of the of the Federal plea, KCSO Commander Erik Levig began an investigation in conjunction with the District Attorney Investigator Don Krueger to learn the true extent of the crimes committed by any member of KCSO. This year-long investigation revealed several new offenses committed by August and Penney.
After he pleaded guilty in 2017, investigators later learned that August worked with other law enforcement agencies transporting seized marijuana from crimes scenes to the department — where he was accused of stealing it.
According to ABC 23, Penny also entered a plea of no contest to two felony counts of falsifying a police report Thursday. He will serve 90 days in custody and be placed on probation for his involvement in the case.
As we reported at the time, shortly after his arrest, August released a video blaming Satan for his actions.
In the video, titled “I’m sorry” August said, “I want to first of all just express how sorry I am to the residents of Kern County and Bakersfield and especially to all the partners that I have with the Kern County Sheriff’s department and all the partners in the Bakersfield city Police Department. And anybody I ever worked with, anybody that wears the badge that I disgraced.”
August went on to say that “I made that decision based on Satan playing games with me, and making me feel like I was prideful and unable to go to family members for help.”
August explained that he pleaded guilty to his crimes and accepted responsibility for his actions, despite blaming them on Satan.
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Apparently, this cop was fostering a long-standing relationship with ‘Satan’ as he’d been running this racket for quite some time.
August has a history of using the power of the state to oppress others and profit from it. According to the court document, he routinely participated in “marijuana eradication operations,” only to turn around and sell the stolen plants for hefty sums.
On 10 separate occasions between March 2014 and December 2014, August wrongfully took marijuana from a law enforcement eradication operation for personal gain. August distributed to his former confidential informant the equivalent of 25 pounds of usable marijuana wrongfully taken from these law enforcement eradication operations. August received $15,000 from the sale of this marijuana.
August is now set to be sentenced until October 13, 2020 for the crimes he was accused of after the 2014 charges.
“I certainly hope the judge does the right thing and treats these former officers as they should be treated, and give them the appropriate sentence and I think that will probably happen, but it’s not my role to sentence people,” Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said.
David Torres, August’s attorney disagrees, claiming no charges should have ever been filed against his client who actually admitted to stealing weed and reselling it.
“First of all, I don’t believe charges should have been filed. There was too much consumption of the public’s time, the public’s money, and efforts by the public,” said Torres. “The reason why it was done was because of the vindictiveness of Sheriff Youngblood and he wants his thumb and finger in everything.”
All of this underscores yet another way that the police state and the war on drugs serve only to degrade society and create crime where none should exist. Growing and selling a medicinal plant that has been used by humans for thousands of years is not the problem. Government’s prohibition of cannabis – borne of racism and the stifling of dissent – is the problem.
While thousands of people are locked in cages every year for possessing a beneficial plant, the enforcers of prohibition – “just doing their job” – benefit both legally and illegally from this war on people. The aforementioned deputies are among the rare few that actually get caught.
Source: The Free Thought Project
Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Agorist is also the Editor at Large at the Free Thought Project. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter, Steemit, and now on Minds.
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