text: Cops Indicted In Gary Bribery Sting - tribunedigital-chicagotribune
  Cops Indicted In Gary Bribery Sting
  September 14, 1991|By Ronald Koziol.
  A Gary city councilman, two Gary policemen and a Lake County sheriff`s officer were indicted Friday by a federal grand jury in Hammond on charges that they solicited bribes to protect an illegal gambling operation that was actually an FBI sting.
  The indictments were the latest blow to law enforcement in that area. Two Gary police officers already are under indictment on charges related to drug dealing and murder, and four others face departmental charges for stealing money during a drug bust.
  Named in the racketeering indictment were Clemmons Allen, 49, a Gary councilman at large since 1979; Gary police officers Perry Gordon III, 40, of Gary, and George Reveter, 48, of Griffith; and Willie Anderson, 41, of Griffith, a member of the Lake County sheriff`s police warrant unit.
  Allen, a retired Gary police officer, also has been working as a civilian investigator in the internal affairs unit of the Lake County sheriff`s office since 1986.
  Both Allen and Anderson were immediately reassigned to desk duties pending the outcome of their case. Gordon, an eight-year veteran and Reveter, a Gary officer for 21 years, will be suspended as soon as the indictment arrives at the Gary Police Department, said Chief Cobie Howard.
  Howard, whose department has been wracked by recent charges of corruption in its vice unit and who himself announced last week that he will resign in an attempt to increase public confidence in the department, said the latest indictments ``were a big surprise and very disheartening.``
  Attempts to reach those who were indicted were unsuccessful.
  According to the indictment, the bribery attempts were made between September 1989 and August 1990.
  Allen was charged with accepting $950 in cash and liquor and a poster-sized picture and frame worth $300. The picture was of Allen and Lake County Sheriff Stephen Stiglich, said John Hoehner, the U.S. attorney for northern Indiana.
  Gordon is alleged to have accepted bribes totaling $2,350 on 23 occasions, and Reveter is charged with taking $850. Anderson is alleged to have received a total of $8,288 in illegal payments. If convicted on each of the two counts against them, the four could each face 25 years in prison and $500,000 in fines.
  Hoehner said the indictments stemmed from an FBI undercover investigation dubbed SureBet, which began in 1989 and is continuing.
  Posing as the owner of the illegal gambling operation was former Gary Fire Chief Bobby Joiner who ran the venture with undercover FBI Agent Denise Minor under electronic surveillance.
  Robert Petruso, the FBI agent who heads the agency`s Merrillville office, said the government first learned in 1988 that Gary and Lake County sheriff`s police officers may have been protecting illegal gambling operations and decided to set up the undercover gambling operation in Gary to determine if the reports were true.
  During the time Perry is alleged to have taken the bribes, he was a member of Gary`s Public Morals Bureau.