CHICAGO, Ill. — The feds say Archie Stallworth is a crooked suburban cop who sold out his badge to provide muscle for a drug dealer — who actually was an undercover FBI agent.
But Stallworth, 36, insists he was simply playing a bad guy, too.
"If he's going to get an Oscar, I should get an Oscar because we were doing the same thing," Stallworth said of the FBI agent.
Stallworth — who also worked as a Metra train conductor — says he was also undercover, gathering intelligence on a narcotics ring. He provided the Chicago Sun-Times with police reports that he says prove his innocence by showing that he and a partner were documenting their own investigation months before the FBI arrested Stallworth on Nov. 19.
But a federal grand jury last month indicted Stallworth on charges of drug conspiracy as well as filing fake police reports. He provided the Sun-Times with those same reports but insisted they weren't fake.
Stallworth is among four Harvey officers, 10 Cook County sheriff's corrections officers and a Chicago Police officer who have been charged with drug conspiracy. He says that after his arrest, the FBI asked him to wear a hidden microphone in an attempt to capture remarks by Harvey Mayor Eric Kellogg, but he refused.
On May 27, the undercover FBI agent told Stallworth's partner at the Harvey Police Department that he needed protection for a shipment of up to a kilogram of cocaine, Stallworth said. Stallworth provided the Sun-Times with a document entitled "Harvey Police Persons Incident Report" dated May 28. The report, supposedly written by Stallworth's partner, details the May 27 conversation.
Stallworth says his partner faxed the report to the federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, which coordinates narcotics investigations.
The Harvey Police Department refused to vouch for the authenticity of the police reports, referring questions to the U.S. attorney's office, which declined to comment. Stallworth's partner could not be reached for comment. Stallworth said he was forced to resign from the department but now wants his job back.
According to the charges against Stallworth, he met the undercover FBI agent at a south suburban fast-food restaurant July 26 to provide security for a meeting. Afterward, the agent paid Stallworth $300 and said he needed someone to provide security for drug deals.
Stallworth provided the Sun-Times with a July 27 police report he said he filed after the meeting at the restaurant. The report says he met with a man who "began to speak in detail about his interaction in trafficking narcotics." Stallworth wrote that he planned to contact federal authorities when he received more information on the drug operation.
Prosecutors say Stallworth met with the undercover agent Aug. 11 at DuPage Airport, where he agreed to help make a drug pickup for $1,000. He is accused of moving several duffel bags from a plane to the undercover agent's car. Prosecutors said Stallworth, who was armed with a pistol, thought the bags contained 30 kilograms of cocaine, but it was actually fake.
Stallworth gave the Sun-Times a purported Harvey police report dated Aug. 12 in which he detailed the drug exchange at the airport and said he would store his $1,000 payment in a safe until he could turn it over to federal authorities. Stallworth said he did not make an arrest at the airport because he was worried it might lead to a shoot-out.
