He was a bad cop, but a Florida sheriff hired him anyway, after another sheriff fired him, and it didn’t go well for that sheriff, either.
Zachary Wester, 28, began his police career in Liberty County, pop. 8,354, in 2015. He lasted less than a year, and his boss warned the sheriff of neighboring Jackson County, pop. 48,889, not to hire him (read why here).
Now, Wester is the defendant in a high-profile trial in which he’s accused of planting drugs on innocent motorists during traffic stops. The formal charges against him include “racketeering, official misconduct, fabricating evidence, false imprisonment, perjury and possession of drugs and paraphernalia in connection with a dozen traffic stops where he arrested drivers and passengers,” according to ABC News‘s reporting on Saturday, May 15, 2021 (read their story here).
“This is something we’re not proud of,” Jackson County Sheriff Lou Roberts told the Tallahassee Democrat, trying to sound like he wasn’t warned about Wester, which he has to do, because his department is now being sued, and the judgments or settlements in a case like this — which involved, among other things, innocent people who served jail time — could bankrupt a small county like his.
“No agency wants to go through this kind of situation and face the embarrassment of the public. This is a very serious matter. We’re supposed to set higher standards,” Roberts bleated. Yeah, well, shouldn’t have hired the guy. (Read about this here.)
It’s not like anyone caught up in this case really cared, except for Christina Pumphrey (photo, left), the hero of this story, who was a newly-hired assistant state’s attorney (i.e., prosecutor) and lost her job for telling the sheriff he had a crook working for him.
The goat behind that is Larry Bradford (photo, right; his blurb is here), who last year was elected state’s attorney for Florida’s 14th judicial circuit.
Wester’s trial isn’t over yet, so he’s still entitled to a presumption of innocence.
But even before the verdict in his case, there have already been consequences. Ultimately, “Prosecutors had to drop charges in nearly 120 cases involving Wester that occurred between 2016 and 2018 because of the accusations that he planted evidence,” ABC News said in their story.
This saga unfolded in a small-town environment where everybody knows everyone else. Wester got hired by the Jackson County sheriff because his daddy was a longtime deputy there.
It’s a classic illustration of how small-town cops get their bad reputation, and why they often deserve it.
Perhaps the real issue here is societal. Drugs should be legal. If they were then cops planting drugs would be a thing of the past. There are crooked cops and always have been and always will be. Yet prohibition should have been the canary that brought about other changes that lessened corrupt cops power and ability to operate. Sex, drugs and money are where a lot of the corruption and bad cops to be found. Legalizing prostitution and drugs would eliminate a lot of the corruption. [This comment has been edited.]