The Associated Press
MIAMI, Fla. - Three police officers were sentenced Tuesday to more than a year in prison for a plot to cover up evidence that officers planted guns at the scenes of police shootings.
The sentences were the last in a long-running corruption case involving allegations that undercover officers planted weapons at four police shootings from 1995 to 1997. Three men were killed and one was wounded in the shootings.
Lt. Israel Gonzalez and Officer Jorge Garcia each received a sentence of 16 months in prison for lying to a grand jury, obstructing justice by lying in sworn depositions and conspiracy.
Sgt. Jose Quintero received the same sentence for conspiracy for planting one of the weapons.
Gonzalez, who at one time served as an assistant to the police chief, was the highest-ranking officer collared in the case. He resigned after being convicted last April. Garcia and Quintero were later fired.
Nine officers assigned to elite undercover units were convicted in the case, the city’s biggest police-corruption scandal in a generation.
Of the other six convicted officers, four are free on bail while appealing convictions and sentences ranging from 13 months to three years, and two others are on probation.