MIAMI (AP) - The former police chief of a small Florida city will serve three years in prison for a conspiracy in his department to frame black people for crimes they did not commit.
A federal judge in Miami imposed the sentence Tuesday on ex-Biscayne Park chief Raimundo Atesiano, who had faced a maximum 10-year sentence. Three other former officers have also pleaded guilty in the case, which centered around efforts by Atesiano to improve his department’s crime-solving rate.
Atesiano’s lawyer says the victims were not randomly selected but were known to police as having criminal pasts.
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Prosecutors say the crimes for which black people were falsely arrested included burglaries and vehicle break-ins.
Two ex-officers were sentenced to a year each in prison, while the third got just over two years behind bars.
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