A rogue police officer from the Edison, New Jersey’s police department has been sentenced to 20 years in prison following his guilty plea to a string of violent offenses, including the firebombing of his boss’s house.
Michael Dotro was an Edison cop for 10 years before his arrest and conviction. During that time, according to the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office, he engaged in multiple “vengeful” plots, cyberbullied a co-worker, slashed a co-worker’s tires, bought and sold marijuana, tampered with witnesses, and threw a Molotov cocktail into now-Deputy Chief Mark Anderko’s house in 2013.
Superior Court Judge Pedro Jimenez blasted Dotro during sentencing, referring to his time as a police officer as “a complete fraud.” The judge also took umbrage to the fact that Anderko’s family was sleeping in the home when Dotro firebombed it, allegedly because Anderko switched his shift and ordered him to undergo a fitness-for-duty evaluation after his 11th excessive force complaint.
“Sneaking up on a home in the early morning hours while everyone was asleep and knowing that other people were in the home, that’s depraved, there’s no doubt,” said Jimenez. “This was a targeted effort by Dotro.”
Sources: www.nj.com, www.tapinto.net.
Originally published in Criminal Legal News on February 22, 2018.
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