A former San Francisco County prosecutor pleaded guilty in federal court here Wednesday to accepting drugs in exchange for going easy on defendants accused of possessing controlled substances.
Robert Roland, 34, was indicted last year of aiding a drug defendant get sentenced in 2003 to treatment instead of prison while he was a lawyer in the San Francisco County District Attorney's office.
Roland also admitted that in 2002 he appeared as a prosecutor in court in a felony drug case brought against Eric Earl Shaw. The childhood friend of Roland had his felony reduced to a misdemeanor in exchange for hundreds of pills of ecstasy, prosecutors said.
Roland faces a maximum 20-year term when sentenced in June.
Details here from the AP via the San Francisco Chronicle.
UPDATE: The information about the potential 20-year sentence is no longer correct. Roland was initially charged with lying to the FBI and abusing his official position by accepting drugs from his clients defendants in exchange for leniency. The latter is a violation of the Hobbs Act and could have landed him a 20-year sentence.
But it turns out that all Roland apparently did was receive a few tablets of ecstacy for personal use from one of his clients defendant -- an event that did not affect the client's defendant's case. He has pleaded guilty to two felonies: posession with intent to distribute the drug ecstacy (he was going to share it with friends) and using a telephone to facilitate a drug deal. He now faces a maximum of six months in jail and, though he will resign from the DA's office, he hopes to be able to retain his law license. [Facts taken from Daily Journal article of Feb. 9, 2006.]