Nearly Six Years Imprisonment for Former Chicago Police Officer

A former Chicago Police Officer has been sentenced to nearly six years in federal prison for fraudulently obtaining search warrants and stealing cash and drugs from properties he searched. The ex-officer David Salgado has been imposed 71-month sentencing by U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly after a hearing in federal court in Chicago.

Salgado’s former Chicago police partner, Xavier Elizondo was also sentenced to seven years and three months in prison last month by Judge Kennelly. John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; and Emmerson Buie, Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago office of the FBI announced the sentencing.

Valuable assistance was provided by the Chicago Police Department. 39-year old Salgado and 48-year old Elizondo were assigned to a gang team in the Chicago Police Department’s Tenth District. Both officers conspired to submit materially false information to state court judges to fraudulently obtain search warrants. The warrants enabled them to enter various properties.

The officers seized cash and drugs using the search warrants. They would steal the items and falsify police reports to conceal the thefts. In October 2019, a jury had convicted both on all counts against them, including conspiracy to commit theft, embezzlement, obstruction of justice, and deprivation of civil rights. Salgado was also convicted of making a false statement to the FBI.

“The defendants fundamentally betrayed the trust placed in them by the public and the state’s criminal justice system,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sean J.B. Franzblau and Ankur Srivastava argued in the government’s joint sentencing memorandum.  “The defendants not only harmed individual victims, but they also impaired the public’s confidence in law enforcement.”