Complaint alleges cops aimed to steal, sell coke

The deal involved a
Columbus drug dealer working in Zanesville.

COLUMBUS (AP) — Police officer Sean Beck just couldn’t wait.

After calling off a meeting with a drug-dealing accomplice because he was baby-sitting his 2-year-old son, he changed his mind and brought the boy along, according to documents filed in federal court and unsealed Tuesday.

Taking $1,000 from the drug dealer as part of a robbery setup, Beck boasted about making a car payment, then using the money to visit strip bars in Nashville. He then handed the cash to the 2-year-old as the boy chattered about the strip club “money,” documents show.

The documents said Beck enlisted a suspected drug dealer and two fellow officers to steal two pounds of cocaine from another drug dealer with plans to sell it and share the money.

Beck, 28, of the Zanesville Police Department, also is accused of extorting $8,300 from the suspected drug dealer and that dealer’s partner in exchange for not turning them over to authorities, according to the criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Columbus.

Beck and fellow Zanesville police officer Trevor Fusner, 30, were arrested Monday at the Zanesville police department. Chad Mills, 29, a police officer with a Zanesville hospital, was arrested during a traffic stop by Zanesville and Muskingum County police.

Each was arrested on one count each of conspiracy to distribute cocaine. They were being held in Franklin County jail Tuesday.

At a news conference in Zanesville, Police Chief Eric Lambes said the arrests have rocked his department.

“The officers are in shock, disbelief, that one of their own could be involved in something like this,” Lambes said. “They’re very angry at the officers that have been arrested.”

Lambes said he placed Beck and Fusner on unpaid administrative leave. Mills works for Zanesville-based Genesis HealthCare System. Hospital spokeswoman Holly Voltz said Mills was placed on leave pending an investigation.

FBI agents and Muskingum County deputies searched the three officers’ homes and vehicles Monday, the FBI said in a statement.

After plotting the alleged theft with the suspected drug dealer, Beck enlisted Fusner and Mills to help carry out the rip-off, according to the complaint by FBI agent Drew McConaghy. The theft scheduled for Sept. 24 was delayed, then did not take place, the complaint said.

Painkillers

In addition to the alleged plot to steal cocaine, Beck took 45 prescription drug painkillers from a traffic stop, gave them to the suspected drug dealer to sell, then took $65 in profit from the sale, the court documents said.

Beck took his son to the drug dealer’s house Sept. 18 to talk about the planned heist. During that meeting, Beck said he had staked out Interstate 70 in Zanesville for several hours the weekend before, looking for a green van alleged to contain $200,000 in drug money.

Beck told the drug dealer his plan was to pull the van over, take $150,000 and then release the driver.

Getting the $150,000 would be “the best of life,” Beck said, according to the complaint.

“I would have bought her [his wife] a new car, paid cash, and put the rest in the bank,” Beck said, according to the complaint.

Over the summer, Beck extorted $7,500 from the suspected drug dealer and another drug dealer in exchange for dropping an investigation.

After Beck received the money, he demanded another $1,300. The suspected drug dealer then went to police who began the investigation that led to Beck’s arrest.

Beck planned to steal the cocaine during a meeting with a Columbus-area drug dealer at a Zanesville cemetery, the criminal complaint said. Beck planned for those involved in the robbery to wear clothes identifying them as members of the Zanesville drug squad.

He even assigned his alleged conspirators names of drug squad members “to further the deception,” the complaint said.