Camden Cops Sued for Planting Drugs on Defendants

Joel Barnes spent 419 days behind bars for a crime he didn't commit, sentenced to prison after being framed by corrupt, drug-planting cops in Camden, New Jersey. As for the two officers who set him up? They haven't even been charged with an offense.

Barnes' story is not unique, either. Nearly 200 other innocent people were also set up by Camden cops in recent years, with critics -- and one cop's father -- charging that officers were taught to plant drugs on defendants by their higher ups in the police force.

Now the ACLU is suing on Barnes' behalf, seeking compensation for his ordeal -- not just from the arresting officers, but from the Camden County Prosecutor's Office and the local police department, which the group charges failed to exercise the "proper supervision and institutional control" that could have prevented the scandal.

Barnes' ordeal with the law began August 2nd, 2008, at a friend's house when several police officers busted in, demanding to know "where the shit at?" When Barnes denied -- truthfully -- that there were any drugs in the house, two cops, Robert Bayard and Antonio Figueroa, tried to get him to say otherwise.

At one point, according to the lawsuit, after Barnes had been taken outside to a police vehicle, Officer Figueroa tried to scare him into confessing, saying, “We found the shit, and we’re going to send you to the county [jail].” When that didn't work, he and Officer Bayard quit looking for drugs in the house and instead pulled some out of their own pockets, telling Barnes they would plant them on him if he didn't fess up.

"Tell us where the shit at and we'll make this disappear," the officers allegedly said.

When Barnes didn't tell them -- again, having nothing to confess -- the cops made good on their threat, charging him with unlawful possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute in a schoolzone, charges punishable by 10 to 20 years in prison.

"I felt helpless and didn't know what to do," Barnes says now, just over two years since the incident. "I knew I hadn't done anything wrong, but I also knew that the officers had all of the power and I had none. It's disturbing that the police officers who are supposed to protect the community were the ones breaking the law, misusing their power and abusing so many innocent people."

In addition to damages for the nearly 14 months of Barnes' life spent locked up, the ACLU suit, filed in a U.S. district court last week, seeks changes in police policy that the grops hopes will prevent similar travesties of justice. Indeed, one former cop -- father to one of the defendant's named in the suit -- said his son was "taught" the tactic of planting evidence on defendants by the Camden Police Department itself.

"Planting evidence on innocent people in order to send them to prison is one of the most serious forms of police misconduct, and police who engage in such behavior must be held accountable," Edward Barocas, legal director of the ACLU of New Jersey, says in a statement announcing the suit. "Mr. Barnes deserves to be compensated for the year of his life now lost forever and for the trauma he suffered at the hands of these corrupt officers."

The ACLU is suing five Camden police officers in total, three of whom have already pleaded guilty to federal charges of violating defendants' civil rights. Bayard and Figueroa have yet to be charged.

Photo Credit: Luigi Caterino