Sgt. Wayne Jenkins is set to become the sixth of eight indicted Baltimore police officers from the infamous Gun Trace Task Force to plead guilty to federal charges, though it’s unclear which ones.
Jenkins’ attorney, Steve Levin, has requested a rearraignment in the U.S. District Court of Maryland tomorrow at 10:30 a.m., according to federal court records. Jenkins had previously been planning to join two other officers, Dets. Marcus Taylor and Daniel Hersl, in taking his case to trial by pleading not guilty.
“Mr. Jenkins intends to enter a guilty plea tomorrow,” Levin confirmed in an email, though he declined to specify to what charges. Jenkins faces a slew of them, including racketeering conspiracy, robbery, extortion and firearm possession in furtherance of a violent crime, as well as destruction, alteration or falsification of federal records and deprivation of rights under color of law for allegedly planting narcotics on two suspects in 2010.
In the latter 2010 incident, authorities say Jenkins duped Sean Suiter, then a Baltimore Police officer of nine years, into “discovering” the narcotics that were used to arrest both suspects. Mysteriously, Suiter was fatally shot in November 2017 with his own gun in a vacant lot in Harlem Park the night before he was set to testify against Gun Trace Task Force officers in court.
The Sun’s Justin Fenton first reported Jenkins’ plans to plead guilty.
Jenkins and Sgt. Thomas Allers led the Gun Trace Task Force, a unit of plainclothes officers who were entrusted with taking guns off city streets, but were discovered to be robbing suspects and civilians, selling stolen drugs and guns, falsifying arrest reports and overtime sheets and other misconduct over several years. Allers and four officers–Dets. Momodu Gondo, Evodio Hendrix, Jemell Rayam, and Maurice Ward–pleaded guilty in 2017.
A ninth police officer from Philadelphia, Tony Snell, was also indicted, accused of working with Jenkins and Rayam to sell stolen heroin and cocaine up in Philly.
Indictment papers suggest Jenkins was a ringleader of sorts in many of their heists. In one incident in July 2016, prosecutors say he impersonated a federal prosecutor–“treat me like the f*****g U.S. attorney,” he was quoted as saying–and “interrogated” a couple kidnapped by Gondo, Rayam and Hersl. Jenkins ultimately convinced the couple to hand over $20,000 stashed in their home, which the officers then split.
Jenkins also allegedly signed off on false arrest reports used to mask thievery, as well as fraudulent overtime sheets. On July 18, 2016, prosecutors say Jenkins submitted overtime reports for 40 hours worked over five days for “crime suppression” duty when he was, in fact, vacationing in Myrtle Beach with his family.
Jenkins made nearly $169,000 in gross pay in the 2016 fiscal year–including more than $83,000 in overtime–according to a copy of the original indictment, far more than any other officer indicted in the racketeering ring.
