Former D.C. Police Officer Convicted of Selling Private Information from Reports

WASHINGTON -- A former Washington, D.C., police officer was convicted last week of accepting bribes for giving a conspirator confidential information from traffic accident reports that appears to have helped attorneys find clients.

Six other people already pleaded guilty in the scheme. They included another police officer and two police department civilian employees.

They are accused of selling Information about traffic accident victims to middlemen who then would resell it to legal and medical service providers looking for clients or patients. The information included the injured persons’ names, nature of their injuries and home addresses.

Local laws require that the information be kept confidential to protect the privacy of accident victims.

Nevertheless, one of the civilian employees sold information from 12,206 accident reports in five months, according to prosecutors.

The former officer convicted last week, Vincent Forrest, 35, sold information from 2,316 accident reports to a middleman for $15,000, according to prosecutors. He had been fired from his job before the conviction in U.S. District Court on charges of bribery, conspiracy and making false statements.

Both Forrest and the other convicted police officer are awaiting sentencing. One of the middlemen – also known as a “runner” – has completed an 18-month prison sentence. Another runner was sentenced to five years of probation.

Forrest allegedly communicated with his runner through encrypted messages. They exchanged documents and money in person, according to the prosecution.

One item of evidence introduced against the former officer was a May 10, 2019 text message in which he promised to start getting accident reports the next day. The runner allegedly responded with a message saying, “Please that would be nice. I’m thinking we should do all 7 districts.”

Forrest answered, “Doesn’t matter to me. I’ll give you whatever is there,” court documents show.

For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: [email protected] or phone: 202-479-7240.