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Last updated on Friday, February 8, 2013
(INDIANAPOLIS) - A jury found 53-year-old David Butler guilty on two counts of robbery and two counts of official misconduct after about four hours of deliberations.
He was found not guilty on another count of robbery and another count of misconduct.
According to the original probable cause affidavit, Officer Butler was accused of targeting Hispanic men. Butler told pulled drivers over and asked them to step out of the car while he searched their vehicle. After the searches, the men said thousands of dollars of cash was missing from their wallets.
"In one of the traffic stops that occurred at the Marathon gas station with Mr. (Emiliano) Vasquez. The defendant said that he started to go through the car, but he didn't want to go all the way through the car, because the car was dirty. Well, actually, he was dirty. He was a dirty cop," said prosecutor Anne Harrigan. "The defendant was targeting a particular group of individuals - that being illegal aliens -and robbing them when they were pulled over by him."
A separate jury had not been able to reach a verdict previously.
Police Chief Rick Hite released the following statement Thursday:
"Officer Butler does not represent nor is he indicative of all the hard working men and women of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, we work within and most importantly respect our judicial system and the jury has spoken."
Butler will be sentenced Feb. 22. He could face up to 16 years behind bars.
Read more: http://fox59.com/2013/02/07/impd-officer-found-guilty-of-robbery-official-misconduct/#ixzz2KIh41vNQ
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