Two Miami cops found guilty of protecting drug dealers, now face long prison terms

A pair of Miami police officers — one a veteran, the other a relative rookie — were convicted by a federal jury late Friday of providing protection for drug traffickers who were actually FBI undercover investigators posing as dealers moving loads of cocaine through the city.

The 12-person Miami jury reached the guilty verdicts after about seven hours of deliberations following testimony by both officers this week — making statements under oath that were starkly contradicted by undercover audio and video recordings.

The veteran officer, Kelvin Harris, 53, claimed improbably that he was working as an undercover cop during the course of the sting operation, even though he accepted $10,000 in bribery payments and made no personal record of his investigative activities.

The younger officer, James Archibald, 33, asserted that he didn’t really know he was protecting drug shipments at first and only realized it later on. Archibald testified he only stayed in the racket because he felt his life was threatened by another veteran Miami officer, who was also a target of the undercover probe. Still, Archibald also accepted $6,500 in payoffs and gave an incriminating statement to FBI agents on videotape after his arrest last October.

“Both Kelvin Harris and James Archibald took that witness stand and lied to you,” federal prosecutor Harry Wallace told the Miami jurors during closing arguments Friday. “And the only reason they took that witness stand was to hide something from you.”

The federal jurors apparently agreed, finding both officers guilty of accepting cash bribes for protecting what they believed was cocaine during the FBI sting operation last year.

Harris, who served on the force for 26 years, was convicted of conspiring to possess with intent to distribute more than five kilos of cocaine, which carries up to life in prison. He was also found guilty of attempting to possess with intent to distribute cocaine three times and possessing a firearm three times between September and October 2018.

Archibald, who was on the force for only two years, was also convicted of the conspiracy drug charge and one count of attempting to possess with intent to distribute cocaine. But he was found not guilty of a second count of attempting to possess with intent to distribute and two counts of possessing a firearm during that same time frame.

As about two dozen relatives cried in the federal courtroom, the two Miami cops were ordered into custody by U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga. She set their sentencing date for Sept. 6.

Archibald, whose father is a church pastor, turned to his family and supporters and said: “We know the God we serve.”

One woman responded: “Yes, we do.”

Harris said nothing as he was taken into custody by U.S. Marshals deputies.

A third officer, Schonton Harris, 51, the ringleader who was on the Miami force for 20 years, cut her losses in January when she admitted that she accepted a total of $17,000 for using her badge and firearm to help carry out a series of criminal activities, including protecting and moving loads of what she believed to be cocaine.

Harris pleaded guilty to the first count in her indictment, conspiring to possess with intent to distribute controlled substances. In April, Altonaga punished her at the high end of the sentencing guidelines, or more than 15 years.

Schonton Harris was initially singled out as a likely target in the sting operation after Miami police internal affairs investigators and the FBI confronted officer Catina Anderson, 45, in April of last year about running a small-time protection racket for opioid dealers and extorting a bookie. She received $1,500 in bribery payments.

Anderson pleaded guilty to an extortion charge this spring and is awaiting sentence. She was the prosecution’s star witness.

During her testimony, Anderson took intense heat from Harris’ defense attorney, Jonathan Schwartz, and Archibald’s lawyers, Michael Grieco and Sabrina Puglisi, who accused the government witness of lying on the stand and entrapping their clients. Grieco and Puglisi argued that their client was not predisposed to join the drug-protection racket and was set up by the cooperating witness, Anderson, who suggested that Schonton Harris “get him.”

But Anderson ultimately withstood the accusations because she was wearing a recording device during her interactions with the other three cops.

“The same story I told today is the same story that happened,” Anderson said during a critical point in her testimony. “I can’t change [my testimony] because everything was recorded.”

All four Miami police officers worked in the North District Substation in Model City, which has been besieged with corruption problems investigated by the city’s internal affairs unit and the FBI. Kelvin Harris was assigned to desk duty because of a domestic violence issue, while Archibald was a neighborhood resource officer. Schonton Harris and Anderson worked patrol duties.

In the FBI sting operation, undercover investigators flipped Anderson to recruit Schonton Harris who, in turn, recruited Kelvin Harris and then James Archibald. (The two Harrises are not related.)

The most compelling undercover evidence was gathered by the FBI during two drug-protection schemes on Sept. 28, 2018, and on Oct. 11, 2018.

In the former incident, all four officers collaborated in protecting undercover dealers moving two suitcases of cocaine from a Greyhound bus station to two hotels, the Yves and Extended Stay, near Jackson Memorial Hospital. The jury found Kelvin Harris guilty of this crime, but not Archibald.

In the latter incident, Schonton Harris and James Archibald helped carry two coolers containing cocaine from the Crandon Park Marina on Key Biscayne to two local hotels, the JW Marriott in Miami and the Courtyard Marriott in Coral Gables. Kelvin Harris and Anderson provided protection. The jury found both Kelvin Harris and Archibald guilty of this crime.

At one hotel, Archibald was shown pulling a cooler on rollers into an elevator, and then he and Schonton Harris were shown together meeting with an undercover drug dealer in a room with bricks of cocaine spread out on a bed, according to videotaped evidence.

In all of the schemes, the FBI used sham cocaine, but the three targeted cops believed the white powder packaged in bricks was actual cocaine, according to federal prosecutors Harry Wallace and Jessica Obenauf.

On the stand, Archibald acknowledged he knew he was protecting drugs but insisted he only stayed in the racket because Schonton Harris threatened to make him “disappear” if he tried to get out of it or tell anyone.

Asked by Obenauf, the prosecutor, why he moved the drugs, Archibald testified, “I needed the money,” citing rent, a car loan and credit card debt. But Archibald repeatedly blamed Schonton Harris for threatening him: “I did not want to be killed. I did not want my family to be harmed.”

Archibald refused to join Schonton Harris, Anderson and the undercover drug dealers at a celebratory dinner at the Fontainebleau hotel on Miami Beach after the Oct. 11 drug delivery, saying he he didn’t want to associate with the dopers anymore.

Instead, he took his wife out to a $300 dinner at the waterfront steakhouse, Smith & Wollensky, on Miami Beach, testifying that the couple had just learned she was pregnant. They shared a $170 tomahawk ribeye steak and enjoyed alcoholic beverages, according to trial evidence. He paid for the bill with cash.

That same day, Archibald and his wife exchanged emails about buying her a pair of $730 leather sandals as an anniversary gift, the evidence showed.

Obenauf asked the police officer, “Is that expensive for somebody struggling to pay rent?”

Archibald’s response: “I would agree that’s a very, very expensive pair of shoes.”

This story was originally published June 28, 2019 at 11:10 PM.