In a somewhat surreal case, a San Francisco Assistant District Attorney has been sentenced to six months in jail for accepting ecstasy tablets from the very defendants he was prosecuting on felony drug charges, one of whom was, incredibly, a childhood friend.
Robert Roland, 33, pleaded guilty in February of this year on four felony counts, including possession of Ecstasy, with intent to distribute, using a telephone to facilitate the commission of a felony drug offence, and two counts of possessing Ecstasy.
According to an announcement by U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan, he was sentenced to six months in prison, three years of supervised release and 150 hours of community service. Ryan added that “[p]rosecutors, because of the unique role they play in the criminal justice system, must conduct themselves with the utmost integrity.” He didn’t explain why the utmost integrity wasn’t needed from other players in the system.
Roland had prosecuted his friend Eric Earl Shaw in June 2002 and the next day received ecstasy tablets from him in exchange for the felony drug charge being treated as a misdemeanour. A year later he prosecuted Ryan Ernst Nyberg, also on felony drug charges, and received ecstasy tablets the next day in exchange for arranging Nyberg a place in a diversion program. A few months later he picked up more ecstasy tablets, this time from Nyberg’s house.
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