Alabama: The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama sentenced former Centre Police Department (CPD) Off. Michael Kilgore, 41, to four years in federal prison on October 8, 2025, after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine in a wild evidence-­planting scheme to advance his career. WBRC in Birmingham reported that the scheme began in January 2023, shortly after Kilgore was hired the previous year, when he conducted a traffic stop and discovered illegal narcotics in the vehicle. Recruiting the unnamed driver as a co-­conspirator, he then purchased meth, oxycodone and marijuana, placing it in a package attached with a magnet to the undercarriage of a second unnamed driver’s vehicle. Kilgore then made a sham arrest of the driver after conducting a stop and search of her car. The scheme fell apart after the co-­conspirator bought drugs for another illegal sting and turned Kilgore in. After his prison term, Kilgore was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release. See: United States v. Kilgore, USDC (N.D. Ala.), Case No. 4:24-­cr-­00310.

Alaska: In the latest of 23 criminal cases tainted by the sexual indiscretion of former federal judge Joshua Kindred, the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska vacated the conviction and 30-­year sentence of former Eagle River nurse practitioner Jessica Joyce Spayd, 54, on August 25, 2025. According to Alaska Public Media, Spayd was found guilty in October 2022 on 10 counts, including illegal opioid distribution and maintaining a drug-­involved premises, linked to the deaths of five people. But her attorneys successfully argued that the trial was “fundamentally unfair”due to misconduct by Kindred, who resigned in July 2024 amid an investigation into an inappropriate sexual relationship with a former law clerk. The state Bar Association has recommended his disbarment. It was unclear if Spayd would be retried.

Arkansas: KATV in Little Rock reported that former Monroe County District Judge Thomas David Carruth, 64, was sentenced to two years in federal prison on May 19, 2025, for making false statements to the FBI. Although acquitted of bribery and fraud charges, Carruth was found guilty of lying about a 2022 encounter with a defendant’s girlfriend, during which he solicited sex and a lingerie show in exchange for favorable treatment in her boyfriend’s criminal case. The woman recorded the exchange, prompting the FBI investigation. Carruth insisted that he didn’t “even [think] about” sex with the woman. But the recordings captured him propositioning her – ”How do you feel about sex?” – which gave the lie to his claims.

District of Columbia: Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Sgt. Montez Clark, 27, was arrested on September 29, 2025, after evading fellow cops who tried to stop his car and leading them on a high-­speed chase that ended in a crash. The Washington Post reported that two other unidentified passengers were also in the Camaro when it collided with a vehicle carrying federal Diplomatic Security Service agents who were patrolling alongside the MPD and agents from the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service and Homeland Security Investigations, as part of a crackdown ordered by Pres. Donald J. Trump (R). One of two Glock pistols recovered at the scene was fitted with an illegal “switch” converting the semi-­automatic pistol into a machine gun, and all three men were charged with weapons violations, one as a felon in possession. Clark, who has worked at MPD since 2019, was also charged with assault on a federal police officer and fleeing from the collision. He is on administrative leave while MPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau investigates.

Florida: On October 13, 2025, former Kissimmee Police Department (KPD) Off. Andrew Baseggio was sentenced to nine months in the Osceola County Jail, followed by 18 months of probation, after he admitted to making an unwarranted home entry during a service call and then assaulted a suspect in the throes of a mental health crisis, hitting him in the face with a prohibited “knee spike” and repeatedly firing his Taser. For that April 2023 use of excessive force, WESH in Orlando reported, Baseggio initially faced a 40-­year sentence before making a deal to plead guilty to felony battery, official misconduct, and two counts of witness tampering. Baseggio also falsified his incident report and attempted to solicit perjury from a fellow officer in an attempted coverup before ultimately resigning. The victim, Sean David Kastner, suffered serious injuries and required dental work. The incident exposed a corrosive “culture of silence” within the KPD, leading to the resignation of Chief Betty Holland. Deputy Chief Wilson Muñoz was suspended, and another 13 officers were disciplined, including four who were fired.

Illinois: On October 16, 2025, a Kane County grand jury indicted former Campton Hills Police Department (CHPD) Chief Steven Millar, 60, Off. Douglass Kucik, 42, and two former officers, Scott Coryell, 57, and Daniel Hatt, 65, for stealing and selling firearms from the CHPD evidence room between 2018 and 2023. According to CBS News, they allegedly falsified reports to facilitate illegal gun sales and obstruct investigations. Charges include theft, forgery, official misconduct, money laundering, wire fraud, and firearm-­related felonies. All four surrendered and were released under conditions prohibiting firearm possession, out-­of-­state travel, and contact with one another. Millar faces the most charges, including felony forgery and firearm offenses.

Illinois: Former Waukegan Police Department (WPD) Off. Dante Salinas was convicted on September 26, 2025, of a stunning use of excessive force during an arrest – the first in WPD history – WFLD in Chicago reported. Salinas was found guilty after a bench trial of official misconduct and battery stemming from the 2019 incident. His body-­worn camera (BWC) revealed that he rolled out of his vehicle outside a baptism party with gun drawn and aimed at suspect Angel Salgado, switching to his Taser and then his fists as he beat Salgado and broke his eye socket. The City earlier settled a suit that Salgado filed over the incident for $300,000, according to the victim’s attorney, Kevin O’Connor. Salinas was later fired and charged with second-­degree murder for a deadly shooting during a 2020 traffic stop that killed Marcellis Stinnette, 19, and injured his girlfriend, that time with his BWC turned off. Trial on that charge is pending.

Illinois: During its “Operation Midway” blitz on October 16, 2025, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested Hanover Park Police Department (HPPD) Off. Radule Bojovic, 33, for allegedly overstaying a tourist visa that expired in 2015. CNN reported that the native of Montenegro had recently graduated from the Suburban Law Enforcement Academy and begun a 15-­week intensive field training program. But Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin of the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, was not embarrassed over snagging a fellow law enforcement officer in the dragnet, questioning how HPPD could hire someone living illegally in the U.S. for 10 years and noting that arming undocumented aliens was a felony. Hanover Park Village Pres. Rodney Craig defended HPPD, saying that background checks revealed no criminal history prior to Bojovic’s employment.

Iowa: The Des Moines Register reported that former Keokuk County Sheriff’s Department (KCSD) Dep. David Heady, Jr., 33, was sentenced to a 10-­year prison term on October 15, 2025, for his role in a devastating hayride crash near What Cheer involving dozens of junior high students in October 2023. Heady, an organizer of the event, was convicted last month of 13 counts of child endangerment. Both he and driver Daniel Brubaker, 36, admitted to drinking heavily before Brubaker lost control of the vehicle on a gravel road, plunging his truck and the hayride trailer it was towing into a ditch and tossing 29 children from the ride, seriously injuring three of them – including one that Brubaker ran over. He pleaded guilty in July 2025 to 13 total counts of child endangerment and neglect, receiving a 15-­year sentence. Heady was also fined $1,370 and, along with Brubaker, ordered to pay $419 in restitution to the Iowa Crime Victim Compensation Program. Heady received an additional no-­contact order for 12 of the children for five years. He tendered his resignation from KCSD to Sheriff Casey Hinnah (R) shortly after the accident.

Louisiana: Two former Alexandria Police Department (APD) officers, Austin Butler, 38, and Dylan Tritle, 32, were arrested and fired on October 2, 2025, following an investigation into multiple use-­of-­force incidents caught on video in July 2025. According to KALB in Alexandria, the cops responded to a motel noise complaint and convinced the unnamed suspect to leave on July 25, 2025, when their BWCs recorded him accidentally brushing against them – prompting them to wrestle with him and toss his belongings into the trash. In a second incident that same night, they responded to a bar complaint and ejected a patron, rejecting his request for a ride in their K-­9 patrol vehicle and then tackling and assaulting him when he neared the car to ask again. BWC footage from the third incident wasn’t shared because it involved juveniles. Louisiana State Police arrested both cops on charges of malfeasance in office; Butler also faces one count of simple battery. Records show that he was previously arrested for DWI while off-­duty in 2018. “We clipped the sour fruit off of that tree immediately,” APD Chief Chad Gremillion boasted.

Louisiana: WBRZ in Baton Rouge reported that former Baton Rouge Police Department Off. Donald Steele, 38, was sentenced to a year in prison on October 16, 2025, for groping an unnamed college coed during a 2021 traffic stop. He was convicted of malfeasance in office, after an earlier April 2024 conviction for “misdemeanor malfeasance” – a crime that doesn’t exist. That led the state Supreme Court to suspend Judge Eboni Johnson Rose, who made the error. She is also the niece of Judge Don Johnson, who ultimately sentenced Steele. For that, prosecutors tried and failed to have him removed from the case, only to watch gobsmacked as he offered Steele a reduced sentence in exchange for an apology. Steele refused, though, promising to appeal and arguing that an apology could be used against him in a retrial. He expressed regret only for not issuing a ticket. Prosecutors had sought a five-­year sentence for the former cop for kidnapping, but he was acquitted of that charge.

Maryland: According to The New York Times, former FBI agent Eduardo Valdivia, 41, was sentenced to 60 years in prison on October 14, 2025, for sexually assaulting three clients in a secret tattoo studio that he ran. As CLN reported, Valdivia was convicted of rape and sexual assault in July 2025 after luring victims with free tattoos and promises of lucrative modeling contracts in tattoo parlors that he operated at night and on weekends under the alias “Lalo Brown.” [See: CLN, Oct. 2025, p.50.] Rejecting his pleas for mercy, the court noted that he used his FBI training to manipulate his victims, also destroying SIM cards in cameras used in the phony photo shoots to cover up his crime. Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy added that Valdivia “took on multiple identities to ingratiate himself to these young girls who were all his victims.” The FBI fired him a month before his conviction, his attorney said.

Minnesota: The Minnesota Reformer reported that the state Court of Appeals granted a new trial to convicted demonstrator Mylene Vialard, 56, on August 18, 2025, in what her attorney called a rare instance of holding prosecutors accountable. The appellate court found that jurors in her 2022 trial may have been tainted by “pervasive” misconduct of former Aitkin County Assistant Attorney Garrett Slyva, who suffered numerous dismissals in prosecutions targeting protestors against the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline in 2021. But Vialard was convicted of felony obstruction of legal process for linking arms with a fellow protestor in a “sleeping dragon” maneuver to prevent their removal from hammocks slung in a 25-­foot-­tall bamboo tower that they erected to block an access road. In weighing the charges against her, Slyva impermissibly invited jurors to consider hypothetical video evidence that didn’t exist. He resigned in April 2024 at the start of a 30-­day suspension of his law license, issued by the state Supreme Court for sexually harassing two jailed defendants when he worked for the Fargo Public Defender Office; for that he was fired and reprimanded by the North Dakota Supreme Court in September 2023. The pipeline opened in October 2021, carrying 31.9 million gallons of oil daily almost 340 miles from Alberta, Canada, to nearby Superior – right through tribal lands of the Anishinaabe, which opposed the project.

Minnesota: Minnesota Public Radio reported that state patrol trooper Jeremy Plonski, 30, pleaded guilty to federal charges of producing and distributing child pornography on October 8, 2025. He admitted to one count of each charge as part of a plea agreement, and the remaining counts were dropped. FBI investigators found that Plonski used social media in 2022 to send several videos of himself sexually assaulting a minor, wearing his state trooper uniform and sidearm in some. Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Bobier said the victim was between the ages of one and two at the time. Plonski, who was hired in 2022, also faces separate felony state charges in Scott County for criminal sexual conduct with a person under the age of 14.

Mississippi: On October 30, 2025, federal authorities in Mississippi announced indictments against 20 individuals, including 14 current and former law enforcement officers in the Mississippi Delta region, for their alleged roles in a yearslong bribery and drug trafficking conspiracy, the Associated Press reported. The charges, stemming from an FBI investigation, detail a shocking breach of public trust that reached the highest levels of county government and law enforcement across multiple jurisdictions.

At the center of the conspiracy, the law enforcement officers allegedly accepted substantial cash payments – some amounting to as much as $37,000 – in exchange for providing armed protection for individuals they believed to be members of a Mexican drug cartel. Operating in an elaborate undercover sting, the FBI alleged that officers escorted agents transporting 25 kilograms, or 55 pounds, of cocaine through various Delta counties and into Memphis, Tenn. In addition to securing the drug shipments, the officers provided safe passage for the transportation of illicit drug proceeds.

The two highest-­ranking officials arrested were Washington County Sheriff Milton Gaston and Humphreys County Sheriff Bruce Williams. Both sheriffs are accused of accepting bribes in exchange for lending their “blessing” to the illegal operations. Sheriff Gaston, one indictment alleges, even attempted to camouflage the illicit payments as campaign contributions, thereby failing to report them as legally required.

U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner described the sweeping scandal as “a monumental betrayal of public trust,” emphasizing that such endemic corruption undermines the justice system. The indictments underscore persistent challenges facing law enforcement in the state, arriving after several other high-­profile corruption cases in recent years.

New York: A major 2020 drug trafficking case in Buffalo all but collapsed after a federal judge threw out key evidence, citing Fourth Amendment violations by the Erie County Sheriff’s Office (ECSO) Narcotics and Intelligence Unit (NIU). WGRZ in Buffalo reported that NIU Chief Daniel “D.J.” Granville was caught on surveillance video staging evidence and conducting illegal searches on a floor unauthorized by the initial warrant. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York agreed that a photo of crucial evidence was “staged,” calling Granville’s actions “an egregious violation of the Fourth Amendment.” The revelations led federal prosecutors to drop 13 of 14 original charges against defendant David Burgin, after Judge Richard Arcara approved his motion to suppress the evidence on May 29, 2025. The scandal has now jeopardized other cases handled by the NIU. In August, Granville also pleaded guilty to reckless driving and leaving the scene of a property damage accident, after crashing his county vehicle into parked cars. He received a sentence of 50 hours of community service and fines but avoided any jail time. Witnesses alleged a cover-­up, claiming responding cops failed to conduct sobriety tests or cooperate with the special prosecutor.

New York: The Atlanta Black Star reported that officials with the Buffalo Police Department (BPD) must face a new civil trial in the case of Dean Taylor, 65, who was brutally beaten and arrested by BPD cops for recording them from across the street in 2019. Though the charges were later dismissed, jurors sided with the cops when his civil suit went to trial. However, state court Judge John DelMonte set aside the verdict on September 19, 2025, ruling that Taylor had a First Amendment right to record the police officers, who “admitted that they knew the plaintiff was entirely within his constitutional right.” That meant they had no legitimate justification to confront or arrest Taylor, who suffered a split head when BPD Off. Kyle T. Moriarity punched him. A new trial has been ordered to determine the monetary damages owed to Taylor.

Rhode Island: Former Providence police officer Daniel Famiglietti, 60, was sentenced to 15 years in state prison on October 14, 2025, for a fatal 2024 DUI crash that killed 53-­year-­old cyclist Linda Sherman. WJAR in Providence reported that Famiglietti must serve at least seven years at the Adult Correctional Institution, the state’s main lockup in Cranston, after pleading nolo contendere. Investigators confirmed that the ex-­cop admitted to drinking and failed field sobriety tests at the scene on June 20, 2024. State Attorney General Peter Neronha (D) said that the sentence was intended to bring the victim’s family “a measure of justice.”

South Carolina: The Spartanburg Post and Courier reported that former Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright agreed on September 25, 2025, to plead guilty to three federal charges, including conspiracy to commit theft and obtaining controlled substances through misrepresentation. Wright resigned in May 2025, ending a 20-­year term. He and former Chaplain Amos Durham, who was also charged, resigned and pleaded guilty, admitting to embezzling over $10,000 annually from the Chaplain’s benevolence fund since 2017, a portion of which Wright used to buy unspecified prescription pills from an unnamed and unindicted co-­conspirator. Another 147 oxycodone and hydrocodone pills Wright also diverted from a drug buy-­back program. County Councilmember Monier Abusaft decried “the hypocrisy of ‘How many people did he send to prison for petty drugs?’ all the while participating in the drug trade himself.” Wright further admitted to paying another employee, his cousin Lawson Watson, nearly $200,000 in salary and benefits since 2021 while Watson worked full-­time at his own business. Watson was charged, quit and pleaded guilty, as well. The state ethics commission filed 65 charges against Wright in October 2025, including nepotism in the 2024 hiring of his son as a deputy. Wright was earning $219,000 a year, but after his resignation, Abusaft and fellow councilmembers slashed the salary for the job to $100,000. Wright’s sentence remains to be determined, but his plea agreement included a promise to pay $440,000 in restitution.

Washington: After she pleaded not guilty to vehicular homicide while driving under the influence on September 24, 2025, State Trooper Sarah Clasen, 35, drew unusually lenient pre-­trial release conditions: no bail, and permission to travel between Washington and Arizona. Clasen’s blood test, taken hours after the off-­duty crash, showed a 0.17 BAC, more than twice the legal limit. Police reports also contradicted her claim that the motorcycle she hit had crashed into her, killing driver Jhoser Sanchez, 20. Nevertheless, her lawyers successfully argued that she posed no flight risk and was unlikely to intimidate witnesses, securing her release.  

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