Baltimore, Maryland - Baltimore Police Department detectives Evodio Calles Hendrix, age 32, of Randallstown, Maryland, and Maurice Kilpatrick Ward, age 36, of Middle River, Maryland, pled guilty today in federal court to charges of racketeering conspiracy.
The guilty pleas were announced by Acting United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Stephen M. Schenning and Special Agent in Charge Gordon B. Johnson of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Baltimore Field Office.
According to their plea agreements, Hendrix admitted to participating in three robberies from March to August 2016. Ward admitted to participating in four robberies from February through August 2016. Hendrix and Ward also admitted that they were armed with their Baltimore Police Department service firearms during the robberies. Individual victims of the robberies were physically restrained, and the defendants wrote false incident reports and other documents in order to conceal their criminal conduct and otherwise obstruct justice.
For example, on Feb. 17, 2016, Ward and one of his co-defendants stole $500 from an arrestee. Ward then authored a false Baltimore Police Department incident report to conceal the robbery.
Hendrix and Ward admitted that on March 22, 2016, they and two of their co-defendants stole more than $200,000 from a safe they found in the basement of a house they were searching. The four co-defendants then divided the money, and Hendrix and Ward received $20,000 each.
Similarly, on June 24, 2016, while executing a search warrant in a home, Hendrix stole money and later gave a portion to Ward. On Aug. 24, 2016, Hendrix stole money from an arrestee and then gave a portion of the cash to Ward.
Hendrix and Ward also admitted that they and their co-defendants routinely submitted false individual overtime reports, defrauding the Baltimore Police Department and the public. Ward, Hendrix and their co-conspirators falsely certified that they worked their entire regularly assigned shifts, or overtime hours, when they did not. Hendrix and Ward also admitted that they submitted false overtime reports on behalf of their co-defendants, at their co-defendants’ direction, and that their co-defendants submitted false overtime reports on their behalf in return.
Hendrix and Ward admitted that the practice at the police department’s Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) was that if some of the GTTF members made a gun arrest, all members of the GTTF, regardless of whether they had actually participated in the arrest, would submit individual overtime reports, as if they did, and receive salary and overtime. The GTTF was a specialized unit within the Operational Investigation Division of the Baltimore Police Department, whose members were to track and trace recovered firearms in order to identify and suppress the possession, purchasing, and trafficking of illegal firearms within Baltimore City, and assist with the investigation and prosecution of firearms-related offenses.
U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar has scheduled sentencing for Hendrix on Feb. 20, 2018 at 2:00 p.m., and for Ward on Feb. 21, 2018 at 10:00 a.m.
Acting United States Attorney Stephen M. Schenning commended the FBI for its work in the investigation. Mr. Schenning thanked Assistant U.S. Attorneys Leo J. Wise and Derek E. Hines, who are prosecuting this Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force case.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
