Crooked Constable in Houston; Sex Abuser Cop in Killeen

Constable Abercia, two staffers indicted in corruption probe
By Susan Carroll and Mike Morris, HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Updated 11:23 p.m., Thursday, January 12, 2012

"Constable Jack Abercia, a veteran lawman with more than 41 years of service in Harris County's Precinct 1, faces a bevy of criminal charges in a corruption probe that also has snared two of his top staffers.

A federal indictment unsealed Thursday alleges rampant abuses within Abercia's office, accusing the constable of conspiring to sell information from a law enforcement database, accepting a bribe for hiring an unqualified deputy and sending his employees on personal errands on county time.
"The indictment alleges 11 specific acts of misuse of NCIC in November, accusing Abercia of accepting about $9,000 total for running checks on about a dozen prospective employees of a power washing company with ties to the government's confidential informant in the case. Though the indictment focuses on the November incidents, prosecutors say the practice had been going on in the constable's office for a longer period of time.

?Abercia and Butler are charged with bribery in connection with the hiring of an otherwise unqualified deputy constable in return for an alleged $5,000 bribe in July 2010."

Abercia appeared in court with props to make him a sympathetic character - a walker and wearing a moon boot and with his shirt tail hanging out, I suppose to make him look like an addled, sick old man - the Ronald Reagan act. A commenter hit the nail on the head:

"Let's see here, could this evoke a familar equation from the past: Federal felony committed by Harris Co. employee (Jerry Eversole) + Attorney Rustin Hardin + guilty verdict = ridiculously light prison sentence."

Wonder if he sold law enforcement information to the drug cartels?

Mickelodian commented:
"The problem with finding one criminal in government is that he or she is in league with how many other criminals and has been for how long. There is no way in hell that they are going to allow themselves to be exposed for what they are because they would have to expose much more than the taxpayers can believe. These criminals have been at this game since it all started. There is no way to change things now, that time passed a very long time ago.

The only way left now is to get rid of all of them and start over.
No Exceptions!"

Killeen officer charged with sexually assaulting teen

A police officer in Killeen was arrested Thursday and charged with sexual assault after investigators say he had an "inappropriate relationship" with a 16-year-old.

Last week, allegations surfaced that Kirt Yarbrough Sr., a 16-year veteran of the Killeen Police Department, was "having an inappropriate relationship" with a teenage member of the department's Killeen Police Explorer Program.

The perp looks like Jabba the Hut.

The Houston Press in November reported on the problem of Cops Sexually Abusing Teens Learning to Be Cops.
n recent decades, more than 100 police officers have had sex with Explorers they were entrusted with mentoring, the vast majority of them underage. In just the past year, two sheriff's deputies in San Bernardino, California, were arrested for having sex with underage girls; a New York City cop was charged with child sex abuse after sending racy text messages to a 15-year-old; an officer in Bremerton, Washington, was reprimanded for sleeping with an 18-year-old; and a former cop in Burlington, North Carolina, pled guilty to taking indecent liberties with a minor after being accused of having sex with a 14-year-old he'd taken on ride-alongs.