# Corrupt Former Connecticut Officer Faces Prison



## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

*DAVID OWENS*
_Hartford Courant_










A former town police officer faces two years in prison after admitting in Superior Court Friday that he shared information about drug investigations with his then-girlfriend and her family and misused law enforcement databases.

The information that John A. Troland passed on to his former girlfriend and others led to an assault on a confidential informant and caused the targets of police investigations to get rid of cocaine and other drugs they were holding or planned to deliver, Tolland State's Attorney Matthew C. Gedansky told Rockville Superior Court Judge Terence Sullivan.

Troland, 30, resigned from the police department shortly after his arrest in July 2005. He had been on administrative leave since April 2005.

The investigation into Troland's conduct began after his former girlfriend, Sherri Lane-Cheema, told Vernon police that Troland had threatened to kill her on three occasions. She later recanted, but then went back to police and withdrew her recantation and affirmed her original complaint, then told police more.

During Friday's hearing, Troland pleaded guilty to a single count of computer crime. Prosecutors say he misused law enforcement databases to check on Lane-Cheema, her boyfriends, her child's father, Troland's girlfriends, women he was thinking about dating and others. Investigators were able to determine that on 108 occasions Troland misused the system, which is only to be used for legitimate law enforcement purposes.

He also pleaded guilty under the Alford doctrine to a single count of interfering with a police officer. With an Alford plea, a defendant does not admit guilt but concedes the state has enough evidence to win a conviction. The interfering charge was for giving confidential information about ongoing investigations to Lane-Cheema and her relatives, who then shared it with the targets of investigations.

He will be sentenced Sept. 6.

Because of the information he shared, people involved in the drug trade knew the identities of undercover officers and confidential informants, the location of the office narcotics police used and the kinds of cars they drove.

Troland was originally charged with 108 counts of third-degree computer crime, eight counts of interfering with the duties of a police officer, eight counts of reckless endangerment and two counts of false entry by an officer or agent of a public community. He had been a Vernon police officer for about seven years at the time of his arrest and had been a community police officer in the Rockville section of Vernon for about 2 1/2 years.

Vernon Police Chief Rudolf Rossmy said he wanted to wait until Troland's sentencing before commenting.

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