CHICAGO (AP) -- A federal judge sentenced a former Chicago police detective to 10 years in prison for stealing cocaine and planting some of the drugs on an innocent man.
As part of a plea agreement, Jon F. Woodall, 41, pleaded guilty in December to conspiring to distribute cocaine.
Federal Judge John Darrah said Wednesday he was accepting the plea deal reluctantly, the Chicago Tribune reported on its Web site. Darrah had rejected a prior deal, in which Woodall would have served nine years, as too lenient.
Woodall admitted that he and two other former police officers got a tip from a drug suspect in 1998 that cocaine was hidden in an impounded car.
Prosecutors said Woodall, James Benson and Peter Matich stole the cocaine, then agreed to sell most of it and plant the rest on another suspect. Charges against that man eventually were dropped.
On Wednesday, Woodall apologized to the court, to his family and “to the department for which I worked, especially Phil Cline,” the current police superintendent.
Benson, who cooperated with prosecutors, was sentenced to 18 months in prison last month. Matich has not been sentenced; Darrah previously rejected a 7 1/2-year term for him as too lenient.