ROME, Ga. – Former Cartersville police officer Bryson-Taylor
Wayne Banks, who notified drug traffickers that the FBI was conducting a
court-authorized wiretap, has pleaded guilty to a felony charge of Unlawful
Notification of Electronic Surveillance.
“The defendant made a decision to side with the drug dealers
and sabotage an FBI investigation,” said U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay”
Pak. “He placed his fellow law
enforcement officers in imminent danger, and sold out his oath to uphold the
law.”
“It is disheartening to learn that one of our own decided to
take the side of law breakers, putting fellow officers and agents in danger
while violating the trust of law abiding citizens in his community,” said David
J. LeValley, Special Agent in Charge, FBI Atlanta. “It is only fitting that
Banks will now have time to reflect on his decision, as he more than likely
will spend time in prison, alongside the drug dealers he chose to side with.”
“Mr. Banks actions do not reflect the values or culture of
the Cartersville Police Department,” said Lieutenant Michael Bettikofer,
Cartersville Police Department.
According to U.S. Attorney Pak, the charges and other
information presented in court: In 2015, Banks, then an officer with the
Cartersville Police Department and member of the Bartow-Cartersville Drug Task
Force, was investigating a number of drug traffickers operating in the
Cartersville area, including Tomas Pineda Mendoza, using a female confidential
source (“CS”) to obtain information about the network. In cultivating his relationship with the CS,
Banks improperly gave her information from law enforcement databases and
illegally sent her a picture of another cooperating source.
Separately, the FBI was investigating an inmate in a Georgia
state prison, Francisco Palacios Baras, also known as “Shorty,” who was using
contraband cell phones to coordinate methamphetamine transactions outside of
the prison. Using a court-authorized
wiretap on two of Shorty’s cell phones, the FBI learned that Mendoza was one of
Shorty’s associates, and that Mendoza was scheduled to pick up two kilograms of
methamphetamine. The FBI planned to
arrest Mendoza after he picked up those drugs.
The morning of the planned arrest, in the interest of
sharing information and coordinating operations with fellow law enforcement
agencies, an FBI agent informed Banks of the wiretap investigation and the plan
to arrest Mendoza. Banks, knowing that
the drug trafficker he had been investigating was about to be arrested by a
different agency, contacted his CS and instructed her to tell Mendoza to not
pick up drugs that day because the FBI planned to arrest him. Banks also told the CS that the FBI knew
about Mendoza because they were wiretapping Shorty’s phones.
Mendoza did not pick up the methamphetamine as planned, but
was intercepted over the wiretap calling Shorty and telling him that “one of
the girls” had warned Mendoza not to pick up the drugs. He said that he had identified the agents
watching his apartment, as “the girl” had warned, and that law enforcement was
listening to Shorty’s phones. Following
this, Shorty stopped using the phones being wiretapped by the FBI.
With the arrest plan compromised, the surveillance team
identified, and the wiretap exposed, the FBI agents had to take precautions for
agents’ personal safety and try to rebuild the investigation. However, the renewed investigation was
ultimately successful, resulting in Shorty and Mendoza being arrested and
sentenced to 9 years, seven months, and 10 years, 10 months imprisonment,
respectively, for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.
Sentencing for Bryson-Taylor Wayne Banks, 31, of
Cartersville, Georgia, is scheduled for May 11, 2018, before U.S. District
Judge Harold Murphy.
This case is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael Herskowitz and Garrett
Bradford are prosecuting the case.
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