Justin Fenton
Baltimore Sun
BALTIMORE — A fifteenth Baltimore Police officer has been charged by federal prosecutors in the continuing fallout of the Gun Trace Task Force corruption scandal.
Victor Rivera, who retired in March after nearly 26 years with the agency, was charged through criminal information Wednesday with lying to federal investigators.
Rivera had been implicated last month when prosecutors charged another officer in a conspiracy to sell seized drugs through an informant in 2009. The charging document in that case said “V.R.” sold cocaine to a confidential informant, and received the proceeds and shared them with detectives Ivo Louvado and Keith Gladstone.
Louvado was charged with lying to the FBI last month; Gladstone pleaded guilty in early 2019 with planting a BB gun in 2014 to help justify another officer running down a man with his vehicle.
Rivera’s charges relate to the same incident. Prosecutors say Rivera sat for an interview with the FBI in November 2019 and denied bringing the drugs to his informant and splitting the proceeds.
The charges are the latest in the long-running federal corruption probe that started with a wiretap investigation of a drug crew in Northeast Baltimore by suburban police officers. Investigators began investigating a city police officer affiliated with the crew, and broadened the case into his entire unit, the Gun Trace Task Force. The takedown of those officers has led to years of probing historic corruption.
Rivera faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.