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Chicago Tribune - United State
26 September 2007

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Chicago Police Department, IL

Cop held in murder plot

When Chicago Police Officer Jerome Finnigan talked to a fellow indicted cop about killing another officer providing information against them in a corruption probe, he worried about leaving fingerprints on a photo of the target, according to charges filed Wednesday.

But he didn't worry about the cop sitting next to him. He believed they were in the plot together, federal prosecutors said, and that both would benefit from hiring someone to kill their former fellow officer.

Authorities involved in the investigation said Finnigan had good reason to feel comfortable; they could not recall a Chicago police officer ever wearing a wire to gather evidence on another city cop.

Until now. The other officer talking to Finnigan about whether to hire a gang member or a professional hit man for the slaying was secretly recording the conversations, and the FBI and federal prosecutors were listening in.

Finnigan, 44, already at the center of a widening probe of corruption, kidnapping and robbery in the Police Department's Special Operations Section, was charged Wednesday with plotting the murder-for-hire of a former police officer. The unit polices high-crime areas and focuses on making gang and drug arrests.

"The complaint charges that in the face of serious pending state charges and a federal investigation that could result in additional charges, the defendant solicited the murder of a fellow police officer who he believed would be a witness against him," U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald said. "The gravity of this conduct speaks for itself."

The police officer who wore the wire began cooperating recently and immediately told investigators of the plot to kill another former SOS team member, authorities said. The man is no longer a police officer, but he has been named in several civil lawsuits that claimed he was part of Finnigan's team that robbed, kidnapped and falsely arrested people over several years.

Finnigan was arrested between 6:30 and 7 a.m. Wednesday outside his house in the 5200 block of South Sayre Avenue, Fitzgerald said.

Shackled at the feet and dressed in jeans and a faded green sweat shirt turned inside out, Finnigan appeared briefly in court Wednesday afternoon. U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Cole ordered him held until a bond hearing Monday morning.

In asking that the hearing be set for Monday instead of sooner, prosecutors said they planned to present new evidence and possibly new charges.

In telephone recordings made last week, Finnigan and the officer discussed whether they should hire a member of a Hispanic street gang or a "professional hit man" to kill the officer, referring to the planned hit as a "paint job," authorities said.

The recordings also captured the officers talking about the possibility of killing an additional officer, who they believed was also cooperating with authorities, according to the charges.

Authorities said Finnigan and the other officer discussed killing up to four fellow cops.

Attorney Joseph Lopez said that a client, Frank Villareal, was one of the targets. Villareal was one of two police officers charged months after the original arrests in the case that netted Finnigan and Officers Keith Herrera, Carl Suchocki and Tom Sherry.

Finnigan is alleged to have had multiple meetings and phone conversations with the cooperating police officer over the last week.

In a recorded conversation last week at Finnigan's home, he said he "wished he had kept a silencer he had for a weapon," according to an FBI affidavit filed in court Wednesday.

Finnigan also allegedly showed the undercover witness a photo of the officer he wanted to kill that "he had cut from a larger photo containing other members of their SOS team," according to the affidavit. He allegedly planned to give the photo to a gang member to help identify the target.

According to the criminal complaint, the officer whom Finnigan allegedly wanted killed had moved to a new address, but he said that would not be a problem.

"I got the brand-new one," Finnigan said, according to charges. "You know why? [He] sent me a card to his son's graduation party. He sent me the brand-new address. Oh, yeah, dude. I got the new address."

The complaint alleges that Finnigan had been planning to kill the former officer since at least July and that he told the cooperating witness after an Aug. 7 court hearing that the "paint job" was "all taken care of."

Finnigan's lawyer, Michael Ficaro, declined to comment.

A family member who asked not to be named said Finnigan grew up in various Chicago neighborhoods, attended high school in Las Vegas and worked as a carpenter before becoming a police officer. His father was a painting contractor who moved the family often, the relative said.

He is married and has a teenage son, the relative said.

Campaign disclosure records show Finnigan has made $2,500 in donations to the campaign fund of DuPage County State's Atty. Joseph Birkett between 2004 and 2006. Birkett couldn't be reached for comment.

Finnigan, who joined the Police Department in 1988, was given the department's award for valor for heroism in the line of duty in 1999.

Since at least 2002, Finnigan and other SOS officers allegedly robbed and, in some cases, kidnapped suspected drug dealers and citizens with no criminal background.

In one case, four SOS officers drew their guns to clear out a Southwest Side bar and then forced the owner to take them to his suburban home, where he was robbed of thousands of dollars, the initial state charges alleged.

In another, the officers allegedly ransacked a man's safe, stealing cash and a 1952 Mickey Mantle baseball card worth as much as $20,000. They also allegedly handcuffed a pregnant woman after she tried to call for help when she found them in her South Side home.

Prosecutors alleged they took hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more. Cook County State's Atty. Richard Devine said Wednesday that investigators are still working to account for all the money they believe may have been stolen from people. Internal Revenue Service investigators are involved in the case, attempting to trace money allegedly stolen.

The Tribune reported in August that federal prosecutors were joining the Cook County state's attorney's investigation of SOS. Investigators are also looking into the Chicago Police Department's internal affairs division, which was aware of the allegations against Finnigan and several other officers for at least four years but took no action.

Sources familiar with the investigation said that internal affairs "did very little" to investigate the claims from people who said they were robbed by SOS officers. But a spokeswoman for the Chicago Police Department said Wednesday that the department fully investigated claims against SOS and had tried to get the state's attorney's office to prosecute them earlier.

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Chicago Tribune - United State26 September 2007

Cop held in murder plot

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Chicago Tribune - United State
26 September 2007