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Philadelphia Daily News
reporters Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker won a Pulitzer
Prize for their series of articles, “Tainted Justice,”
investigating police corruption. Their book, Busted: A
Tale of Corruption and Betrayal in the City of Brotherly Love,
is based on these articles. It reads like something out of
a Michael Connelly crime novel where they behaved more like
a pair of detectives than journalists.
The story begins in 2009 when a law enforcement source of
Wendy’s sent over a drug addict informant, Benny Martinez,
to inform them about the illegal activities he had conducted
with Philadelphia narcotics officer Jeffrey Cujdik. Readers
soon realize that the search warrants become the key that
opened up the investigation. With Benny’s help Jeff
would fabricate search warrants in order to enter a suspected
drug dealer’s house. People might ask why this is a
big deal since many times drugs were found in the house and
the occupant was a known drug dealer. Laker explained, “The
problem is if you lie with these rules what is to stop someone
from lying on search warrants to get into your home, my home,
or any law-abiding citizen’s house. This is not how
the police should work in a Democratic society.”
But as the reporters investigated further they saw this to
be only the tip of the iceberg. Search warrants were used
to bust into retail shops owned by legal immigrants under
the guise of selling drug-related supplies. After the narcotics
team disabled security cameras they would steal cash and merchandise.
One shop owner had a hidden backup hard-drive that he later
gave to the reporters, which broke the case wide open. Wendy
explained that he had lost his store, house, and dignity,
while trying to fight this injustice.
A third scandal was discovered in the course of the investigation,
how one officer sexually assaulted women. He chose women who
were large breasted, demure, and would not fight back. Wendy
and Barbara feel strongly that these women were targeted because
they were poor. They commented, “Nothing pisses us more
than men in power who preyed on vulnerable women. Officer
Thomas Tolstoy, nicknamed the ‘Boob Man’ by his
colleagues would fondle them, and in one instance shoved his
hand up a woman’s vagina. There is no doubt in our mind
that these women are telling the truth. We had them come in
individually and watch a video of a raid. They all picked
out Tolstoy as the abuser.”
Unfortunately none of these officers involved have been fired.
These officers still collect their paychecks, the same salary
minus the overtime. Although they have been taken off policing
on the streets and now are on desk duty they have yet to face
any criminal charges, including Tolstoy. The police commissioner’s
excuse is that he is waiting for the FBI to make a decision
to indict or not. What is ridiculous is this “holding
pattern” is now over four years.
Busted is a riveting account of how a few bad cops
can tarnish the good deeds done by so many police officers.
It explores the drug underworld and exposes how some bad cops
became corrupt and thought they were above the law, completely
unafraid of getting caught.
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