news-record.com

Correction: Nicole Pettiford was recorded by Greensboro police Special Intelligence officers without her knowledge and prior to a six-hour interrogation by the unit in a local hotel room in 2004. An article Wednesday indicated otherwise.

GREENSBORO - The interim police chief sent a written complaint appealing to federal prosecutors for cooperation in the ongoing investigation of former chief David Wray, city officials said Tuesday.

In the widening rift between the local U.S. Attorney's Office and city leaders anxious to put the 16-month scandal behind them, interim Chief Tim Bellamy last week mailed a sharply critical letter to federal prosecutors. The city claims the office is refusing to investigate the leak of sensitive details from its own federal drug cases.

In a related development Tuesday, the city suspended with pay the former Special Intelligence officer who was the lead investigator in a covert probe of police officers under the Wray administration, the city human resources director confirmed.

Officer Scott Sanders, who is prevented from commenting because of a department gag order, was not given the list of charges against him, according to his attorney, Seth Cohen.

Bellamy declined to comment on the suspension or on his letter to federal prosecutors. Though city officials acknowledge the letter is public information, they refused to provide a copy to the News & Record until federal prosecutors receive it in the mail.

A city spokeswoman cited "professional courtesy" to the U.S. Attorney's Office. In recent weeks, there has been growing animosity between that office and city and state investigators seeking to complete reviews of the covert tactics against black officers during the Wray administration.

James Coman, who is directing the SBI's criminal investigation, said in an affidavit that four months into the state's investigation, the SBI still had not been granted interviews with federal prosecutors believed to have "relevant information."

One alleged incident involving the U.S. Attorney's Office and the police Special Intelligence unit was the six-hour interrogation of a woman at the Residence Inn off High Point Road.

Nicole Pettiford alleged that Cliff Barrett, the federal prosecutor in charge of the local criminal division, introduced himself to her before turning the interrogation over to Sanders, the officer suspended Tuesday.

According to a News & Record investigation, Sanders later used Pettiford to contact black officers within the department, attempting to catch the officers violating the law or department regulations.

Of all her attempts, only one officer was ever disciplined. Pettiford falsely told the officer she was being followed in her car and he ran the license plate of the supposed vehicle to tell her who owned it - a favor forbidden by department policy. Special Intelligence captured the conversation on a phone recording (*see correction*).

The investigation of black officers ran parallel to Sanders' three-year focus on Lt. James Hinson's activities after the department's Internal Affairs section had found insufficient evidence against Hinson. Hinson's discovery of a tracking device on his cruiser first forced the story public.

A city-commissioned report was critical of Sanders' use of "schemes intended to measure the honesty of police employees." Those methods, a News & Record investigation showed last summer, included the use of topless dancers to solicit African American officers for sex, or engage in other criminal activities such as buying stolen TV sets.

But Sanders' attorney said Tuesday that the officer's suspension, apparently the only action so far against officers reassigned from the Special Intelligence unit, was purely political.

"Scott Sanders is a good cop who was doing his job," Cohen said. "The city has screwed this whole thing up with regard to the investigation of the Wray administration and now they need a scapegoat."

As for city officials' criticism of the U.S. Attorney's Office, a spokeswoman for that office said Tuesday that while prosecutors had not seen the police chief's letter, federal authorities followed proper channels.

After a Sept. 28 meeting on case file information being fed to the weekly Rhinoceros Times, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lynne Klauer said the matter was left to those agencies whose drug cases may have been harmed.

Contact Eric J.S. Townsend at 373-7008 or etownsend@news-record.com

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lahearn@news-record.com