By Tim Eberly
Atlanta-Journal Constitution
ATLANTA — Federal prosecutors on Wednesday recommended federal sentences for three former Atlanta police officers who have pleaded guilty for their roles in the shooting death of an elderly woman during a botched drug raid.
The report describes the frequent misconduct that occurred in the Police Department’s narcotics unit before the November 2006 shooting death of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston. She was shot when narcotics officers mistakenly targeted her home as a drug house. They tried to cover up the deadly error.
The U.S. attorney’s office is recommending that Jason R. Smith serve 151 months in federal prison --- about 12 1/2 years --- and that Gregg Junnier and Arthur Tesler serve 121 months (roughly 10 years).
Prosecutors are asking for some sentence reductions for cooperation with the investigation, and that the federal sentences be served concurrently with any jail time they receive from their state charges.
A federal judge will take the federal prosecutors’ report and recommended sentences into consideration before sentencing the three former officers on Feb. 23.
“All three defendants could have prevented this tragedy, but instead they each abandoned their obligations as police officers and law-abiding citizens, leading to the death of an innocent woman,” federal prosecutors wrote.
“The cover up in this case was remarkably choreographed and quite sophisticated. To protect their conspiracy, the defendants were willing to besmirch the reputation of the innocent woman who was killed as a result of their conduct.”
It’s not clear whether any of the three are currently incarcerated.
Junnier and Smith had their federal bond revoked in November 2007 and had to turn themselves in by the next month. But a U.S. attorney’s office spokesman, Patrick Crosby, refused to say Wednesday whether the three men were in federal custody.
Prosecutors are recommending that the sentences for Junnier and Smith be reduced because of their cooperation with federal authorities.
Junnier cooperated the most and, therefore, prosecutors said his sentence should get a “substantial reduction.” Smith cooperated enough to get 10 to 20 percent knocked off his sentence recommendation.
All three pleaded guilty in federal court to charges of violating Johnston’s civil rights, but Smith and Junnier also pleaded guilty to state charges, including voluntary manslaughter. Tesler had a state conviction for lying to FBI agents overturned in appeals court.
The trio often lied to judges to obtain search warrants, falsely claiming that they had personally observed drug purchases, that they had conducted recent surveillance at locations and that they “patted down” informants before sending them to make drug buys, prosecutors wrote.
The federal report also states that Johnston’s death was the “foreseeable and perhaps inevitable culmination of a long-standing conspiracy in which the three defendants repeatedly and routinely ignored police procedures.”
Copyright 2009 Atlanta Journal-Constitution