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Complaint: Rochester police officer tipped off drug dealers
4/15/2009 7:13:51 PM
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By Janice Gregorson
Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN
A Rochester police officer faces a string of criminal charges for allegedly tipping off drug dealers about narcotics investigations and taking money to help pick up and deliver drugs during a two-year period.
Vanessa Nicole Mason, 31, 410 41st Ave. N.W., was put on administrative leave April 7. She now is charged with three felony and two gross misdemeanor counts. Her first court appearance is set for May 21.
The complaint, filed Wednesday by Rice County Attorney Paul Beaumaster, acting as a special assistant Olmsted County attorney, followed an investigation by agents from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
The two gross misdemeanors allege misconduct by a public officer; one of the felonies alleges that she warned a subject about a search warrant and two felony counts allege bribery.
Authorities allege that Mason used her position as a Rochester police officer to warn drug dealers about narcotics division investigations, tip drug dealers off so that they could remove drugs prior to search warrants being executed, and search confidential data bases to give drug dealers information about Rochester residents.
She also allegedly drove to and from the Twin Cities to deliver and pick up drugs, the complaint says.
One man told investigators he knows Mason was paid $10,000 within the past year by a person he identified only by the nickname "Shoe." The witness told police that the payment was for Mason to "look the other way regarding narcotics activity that Shoe was involved in,'' according to the complaint.
When investigators asked the man, Richard Allen Dalton, 30, what his motivation was for coming forward with the information, he said, "he was concerned there was a corrupt police officer in the community." He also said he was hoping to get a reduction in his sentence on charges for which he is in jail. Dalton now is being held in jail in lieu of posting $150,000 bail. His open files include charges of first-degree burglary, third-degree drug sales and possession and felony domestic assault, all from alleged offenses in 2008.
The criminal complaint gives a detailed account of alleged corrupt behavior by Mason from Jan. 1, 2007 through last Wednesday (April 8 ).
Contacted by a Post-Bulletin reporter Wednesday, Mason declined comment and referred calls to her attorney. Efforts to reach the attorney were unsuccessful.
Mason has been a patrol officer for the Rochester Police Department for 4-1/2 years. It's not the first time she has run into trouble. Three years ago, she was put on suspension for 30 days after admitting she was in possession of cocaine in 2005. At the time, the police chief said there was insufficient evidence for criminal charges against Mason and no allegations of on-duty criminal behavior.
A much different picture is painted in the five-page complaint, which indicates she provided information to known drug dealers who were being investigated by the Rochester police narcotics unit, including a man identified as her boyfriend.
That man, Jerrell Moore, 27, now is in federal custody in Iowa. He has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture and distribute 50 grams or more of crack cocaine. Sentencing is set for May. Under the plea agreement, he faces a mandatory minimum 10-year prison term and a maximum life prison term.
Terrance Burkhalter, 34, identified in the complaint as another drug dealer to whom Mason provided information, was sentenced in Goodhue District Court on March 27 to 88 months in prison after pleading guilty to a second-degree drug charge.
Dalton also has a long criminal history in Olmsted County, ranging from misdemeanor convictions to felony assault convictions. He has been sent to prison at least three times on convictions for assault and aggravated robbery in Olmsted County.
The complaint against Mason said that on Aug. 7, 2008, she alerted Burkhalter moments before police executed a search warrant at a home owned by Bryan Piens, 64, of Rochester, who recently was sentenced to prison on drug charges.
Mason was assigned to assist narcotics officers on the search warrant. After the warrant, an unidentified cooperating defendant told the narcotics sergeant, Jeff Stilwell, that Mason had told him she knew narcotics wouldn't find anything in the house because she was able to let someone know the police were coming.
Stilwell subpoenaed telephone records for Mason's personal cell telephone, showing she placed a phone call to Derrick and Terrance Burkhalter, who live in the same area as Piens and are "considered known drug traffickers in the Rochester area,'' according to Stilwell. Derrick Burkhalter, 38, has been convicted twice in Olmsted County of drug offenses and has served time in prison, according to court records.
Arrangements were made for investigators to listen in on a planned telephone call by the cooperating defendant to Mason to request assistance in obtaining confidential information. The complaint said she ran a license plate check as requested and that she also gave the cooperating defendant information regarding the undercover vehicles used by the narcotics unit.
Police also obtained copies of recorded conversations between Mason and Moore when he was in custody in Iowa.
During one conversation, Moore is heard telling Mason to stay away from all the criminals and crooks, that she was "being cool" with too many people. She told Moore she is carrying a gun with her everywhere as a result of what happened a night she hung out with another man, Dwight Barnes, who was sentenced to three years in prison in October on second-degree drug charges. He also is charged in connection with a stabbing outside Rookies Bar last July. That case remains open.
The complaint said Dalton told investigators that during the summer of 2008, he accompanied Mason on trips to the Twin Cities to both pick up and drop off narcotics for Moore and Terrance Burkhalter. He said they picked up heroin and brought it back to Rochester. He said Mason was paid anywhere from $500 to $1,000 per trip and that she would use her personal pickup to make the trip.
Dalton told police it was "common practice" for Mason to contact Burkhalter and Moore to tip them off when she had information she got working as a police officer regarding police activity involving them or any of their friends.
