Ex-police chief’s sentence vacated
A disgraced former East Washington police chief won a sentence reduction for accepting money to protect undercover “drug” stings staged by federal investigators.
The U.S. Court of Appeals, 3rd Circuit, on Monday vacated Donald Abraham Solomon’s more than 11-year sentence in federal prison, ordering the district court to resentence him under reduced guidelines, court records show.
Solomon in January 2013 pleaded guilty to three counts of extortion under the color of official right for protecting FBI agents posing as drug dealers in the shipment of 4 kilograms of phony cocaine in a deal that took place in a local church parking lot in August 2011. A month later, he provided security for a second deal involving a shipment of 10 kilograms of fake cocaine. He was paid $8,800 in connection with the deals, as well as for purchasing two law enforcement-restricted Tasers for one of the agents.
In 2009, Solomon’s “behavior after his divorce attracted the attention of federal authorities and caused them to engage an unidentified confidential informant described by Solomon as ‘an erstwhile friend’ to probe Solomon’s criminal tendencies,” the court record states. That behavior, investigators said, involved disturbing threats to an ex-girlfriend and an East Washington councilman.
He was recorded after agreeing to work with the informant boasting, “I’m the best cop money can buy,” and showed up at one of the staged deals in uniform, with his police cruiser, and carrying a shotgun, an AR-15 rifle and 9mm handgun, court records state.
In the 3rd Circuit opinion, the judges found Solomon’s sentence had been increased substantially by U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti under drug-dealing guidelines. The lower court wrongly interpreted the guidelines and increased his sentence by “implying the abuse of trust enhancement” to a sentence that didn’t involve a cocaine trafficking conviction, the ruling states.
The appeal was heard by circuit judges Thomas M. Hardiman, Anthony J. Scirica and Jane A. Roth.
A date for resentencing has not yet been scheduled.
Solomon, 58, is serving his sentence in the low-security, men-only Oakdale Federal Corrections Institution in Louisiana.
The U.S. attorney general’s office in Pittsburgh declined to comment on the higher court ruling, as did Solomon’s public defender, Elisa A. Long.