BALTIMORE — A former Baltimore Police sergeant was sentenced to nearly two years in prison for assisting a member of the Baltimore Police Gun Trace Task Force by planting evidence at the scene of an arrest.
Keith Allen Gladstone, 53, from New Park, Pennsylvania, will be serving 21 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release.
He was convicted of conspiracy to deprive civil rights in connection with planting evidence at a crime scene.
Gladstone joined the Baltimore Police Department as an officer on November 20, 1992, and was promoted to sergeant on December 16, 2011. Gladstone retired from the BPD on December 25, 2012, but was subsequently reinstated as a Sergeant on December 9, 2013. In March 2014, Gladstone was the officer-in-charge of a Special Enforcement Section (SES) unit assigned to BPD’s Western District. He then retired from the department for a second time on May 1, 2017.
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According to records, Gladstone, who was on duty, was having dinner with Detective Carmine Vignola on March 26, 2014 when he received a call on his cellphone from Wayne Jenkins, another sergeant in the BPD, who was in a panic because he had just run over an arrestee, D.S., in the front yard of a home in Northeast Baltimore.
Gladstone got a BB gun from another BPD Officer, Detective Robert Hankard, then drove with Vignola to the site of D.S.’s arrest on Anntana Avenue and Belair Road.
Police said Gladstone admitted that he dropped the BB gun near a pickup truck where D.S. had laid injured on the ground, although by the time Gladstone arrived, D.S. had been taken to the hospital.
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Reports revealed Gladstone told Jenkins, “it’s over by the truck,” or words to that effect.
The BB gun was then seen by another BPD officer and ultimately recovered by the BPD’s crime lab unit.
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Documents show that based on a false statement of probable cause written by Jenkins in another officer’s name, D.S. was subsequently charged in Maryland state court with possession, use, and discharge of a gas or pellet gun, for the BB gun that Gladstone planted at the scene of D.S.’s arrest, and a number of drug offenses.
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D.S. was detained on those charges and related charges for 10 months. On January 16, 2015, the charges were disposed of by nolle prosequi, which is a form of dismissal.
As a result of his actions, Gladstone conspired to deprive D.S. of his liberty without the due process of law.
After Jenkins and six other officers who had been members of the BPD’s Gun Trace Task Force were arrested on federal racketeering charges, Gladstone and Vignola arranged to meet in person, according to records.
Gladstone arranged for the meeting to take place in a swimming pool, to ensure that Vignola was not wearing a recording device. Gladstone admitted that during the meeting, he told Vignola that if questioned by federal law enforcement about the events on March 26, 2014, Vignola should tell federal investigators that Gladstone and Vignola were at the crime scene for “scene security,” which Vignola knew was not true.
Gladstone also told Vignola to tell law enforcement that Gladstone had gotten the BB gun from his trunk, which was also not true, since Gladstone and Vignola had obtained the gun from Hankard.
