An eight-year veteran Metropolitan Police Department officer was sentenced Friday to 180 days in jail on a charge of attempting to receive stolen property, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
Dioni Fernandez, 35, was found guilty in December after a four-day trial.
Authorities say Fernandez, who was assigned to the 4th District, was selling what he understood to be stolen iPads. He was arrested in March after he was caught in a police sting.
During sentencing, Judge Harold L. Cushenberry Jr. said Fernandez’s testimony at trial, in which he claimed not to have realized the property was stolen, was not credible and that the former officer had betrayed the public trust.
Two other MPD officers arrested on the same date as Fernandez have pleaded guilty to attempting to receive stolen property.
Silvestre Bonilla, 31, was sentenced this month to a 90-day jail term. Guillermo Ortiz, 41, was ordered to pay a $2,000 fine and placed on two years of supervised probation with the condition that he complete 200 hours of community service. Both have resigned from the police department.
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Matthew Cella is The Washington Times’ Metro editor. He can be reached at mcella@washingtontimes.com.
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