Ex-Georgia police officer gets 18 months in obstruction case

ROME, Ga. (AP) – A former Cartersville, Georgia police officer has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for notifying drug traffickers that the FBI was conducting a court-authorized wiretap of their phones.

U. S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak, in a news release Friday, said 31-year-old Bryson-Taylor Wayne Banks, of Calhoun, will also serve three years of supervised release.

In 2015, Banks was a member of the Bartow-Cartersville Drug Task Force investigating multiple drug traffickers, including Thomas Pineda Mendoza, by using a female confidential source to obtain information about the network. Pak says Banks improperly gave her information from law enforcement databases and illegally sent her a picture of another source. Pak says what Banks did was about to be discovered, so he told the source about a planned arrest and wiretapping.

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