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Cops stole porn tapes, lied, ex-officer says
By GRAHAM BRINK, Times Staff Writer TAMPA -- Former Plant City police officer Robert David Dixon testified Tuesday that he and others in the department's special investigations unit routinely stole pornographic videos, illegally searched homes and lied to judges. Not only was the lone defendant in the case, Armand Cotnoir, involved in much of the illegal activity, so were several other officers, Police Chief Bill McDaniel and City Manager Phil Waldron, Dixon said. The unit's motto was, "We can fix anything, except a dead body," he said. "If your sergeant, captain, city manager and your chief know what's going on," Dixon told the jurors, "who's going to get you in trouble?" The testimony came on the second day of Cotnoir's trial on federal charges that include conspiracy, mail fraud and obstruction of justice. Cotnoir is the first officer to go on trial in connection with a three-year federal investigation into the Plant City Police Department. Dixon and one other former officer, Shawn Corgan, pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate in the investigation. Dixon has not yet been sentenced. Corgan received six months of house arrest. No one else in the case has been charged with a crime. Cotnoir's attorney has not had a chance to cross-examine Dixon, who will take the witness stand again today. Chief McDaniel and Waldron have denied any wrongdoing. The department and Mayor Michael Sparkman have supported Cotnoir, 27, who was moved to an administrative position in the department pending the outcome of his case. Dixon, one of the prosecution's star witnesses, recalled many details from memory while implicating several of his former colleagues. Dixon admitted he was a maverick, someone who had never read the department's policy manual and "didn't really care for it." Dixon said he learned soon after joining the special investigations unit in 1997 that certain officers and supervisors condoned the behavior or at a minimum did nothing to stop it. He told the jurors about several incidents in which the unit would lie to a judge to get a warrant and then illegally search a home. One time, he and others in the unit decided beforehand to simply flash a warrant for another house to persuade a suspect to let them inside. The illegal tactic worked and the unit made several arrests after discovering drugs, he said. Afterward, Dixon said he realized how close to disaster the unit had come. One of the suspects inside had a gun. Instead of firing, he stuffed it into a couch. If he had pulled the gun, the officers could have been forced to fire. That could have led to questions about the "bogus" warrant, he said. "As it turned out, we got patted on the back," Dixon said. On many other occasions, they stole pornographic tapes from the suspects and divvied them up back at the station, Dixon said. The unit would travel to and from the searches in the department van, Dixon said. Everyone inside would talk about the stolen videos, he said. "Everyone knew what was going on," he said. In another case, Dixon said, he and Cotnoir made up evidence to secure a warrant to search a house. The team bashed in the door without giving proper notice, he said, found some methamphetamine and arrested the suspects. They also stole about a half-dozen pornographic movies, he said. The tapes from that search were split between Dixon, Darrell Wilson and Capt. Borders, Dixon said. "We were the big three" when it came to the movies, Dixon said. The trial is expected to last through next week. -- Graham Brink can be reached at (813) 226-3365 or brink@sptimes.com.
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