Detroit Public Safety Headquarters

(Tanya Moutzalias | MLive.com)

DETROIT -- Christopher A. Wilson, a convicted drug dealer, says Detroit police officers busted in on an in-progress cocaine deal and "robbed" the men present of nearly $140,000 cash in November 2011.

Amber Pickett, the girlfriend of another high-level Detroit drug dealer currently serving time in federal prison after a bust involving the Mexican Cartel, says Detroit police stole a duffel bag from her home loaded with cash in April 2011. The amount of money in the bag: $45,460, according to a police forfeiture form entered into evidence at a Detroit federal courtroom Friday.

These are just a couple examples of the sort of police-drug dealer heists that prosecutors say a rogue crew of Detroit cops executed between 2011 and 2014.

The seizures were conducted under the guise of law enforcement, but were actually coordinated robberies committed to benefit the officers involved, U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade's office claims.

The federal government says the men monitored substantial drug transactions and intervened, "using their police authority to extort drugs, money and personal property."

Two former Detroit police, Lt. David Hansberry, the crew's suspected leader, and officer Bryan Watson, are currently on trial facing federal charges, along with civilian Kevin O. Brown, a friend of Hansberry and an alleged accomplice.

Hansberry is charged with 18 felony federal crimes; Watson with 16; and Brown with two.

Turner pleaded guilty to conspiracy drug distribution in May 2015 and is set for sentencing in July.

Two others, ex-Detroit Police Officer Arthur Leavells and Calvin Turner, have already accepted plea deals for their roles and are awaiting sentencing.

Through the first three full days of trial testimony before U.S. District Judge Steven J. Murphy III, eight witnesses have testified.

Wilson, who admits to spending nearly 15 of the last 21 years in federal prison for multiple convictions, including conspiracy to deliver cocaine and health care fraud, testified Friday.

"I was middle-manning drug deals," he said. "Whoever was looking to buy drugs, I knew who had the drugs."

One evening in November 2011, Wilson was doing just that, hooking up a man nicknamed "D," and a buyer from Pittsburgh with some cocaine -- lots of cocaine, 4 kilograms.

"I called D and said the deal was on," said Wilson, who claims to have since shed his outlaw tendencies. "We sat there and counted $140,000."

The cash came from a large suitcase brought by the man from Pittsburgh, Wilson said. They counted it together by hand on Wilson's father's kitchen table in Detroit.

Then Wilson, who was to make about $6,000 facilitating the deal called the supplier. That's when things changed.

"He said he didn't have 4 kilos," Wilson testified. "All he had was one."

The buyer had driven all the way from Pittsburgh expecting a full 4 kilos, but the group grudgingly pulled $44,000, enough for 1 kilo, out of the suitcase and told the supplier to bring the drugs.

When the supplier arrived, he handed a bulky, wrapped package to Wilson.

"I was like, 'What is this?'" he testified. "It didn't look right.

"Then ... All I heard was 'boom', 'Detroit police, Detroit police, everyone on the ground.'"

The guys from Pittsburgh ran to the basement, Wilson ran to the back door trying to grab some of the cash on the way and the cocaine supplier stayed in the front room where police initially entered.

"I knew he had set me up," Wilson said. "All Detroit police (came in), dressed like SWAT or Narcos, all wearing masks."

Eventually, the men surrendered and were handcuffed and questioned individually, he says by Hansberry, in the basement.

"I knew something was fishy," Wilson said.

The officers searched the home and found the cash-gorged suitcase.

One of the officers pointed at it. "He was like, 'We got it. We got it," Wilson said.

Wilson, a habitual offender, said he thought he "was done."

But the police let him and other men leave the house one by one. No one was arrested and there was no search warrant presented, nor a forfeiture receipt, Wilson said.

"I was like, 'I just got robbed,'" Wilson testified, adding that his attorney said to "leave it alone."

When assistant U.S. Attorney J. Michael Buckley asked Wilson why he never reported the incident, he responded: "That was a drug deal that went wrong and I didn't want to go to jail."

Pickett, another witness for the prosecution, talked about a raid at the west Detroit home she shared with her longtime boyfriend, Nicholas Simmons, a known drug dealer currently serving a nearly 14-year sentence for crimes related to a Downriver drug bust involving Mexican dealers.

He was indicted in 2012, according to online federal records.

That drug case isn't connected with the incident Pickett testified about Friday.

Pickett said Simmons kept a duffel bag in their home, filled with cash. He told Pickett to grab $10,000 from it and throw herself a birthday party in April 2011, she testified.

Police busted into their home on April 19, 2011, and officers said in forfeiture documents they confiscated marijuana, heroin, cocaine, the duffel bag with $45,460 in cash and a Romanian-made, AK-47-style assault rifle.

Prosecutors in the initial criminal complaint said officers would divide money, property and controlled substances obtained from their victims, "and would sell the controlled substances in order to share proceeds of such sales."

Pickett said she didn't remember the gun and didn't know what drugs police confiscated. Neither she nor Simmons were arrested.

After leaving their house, some of the same officers raided a home on Lancashire Street in west Detroit owned by Simmons' stepmother, Charlotte Simmons.

Charlotte Simmons, who is married to Nicholas Simmons' father, Roderick Simmons, another high-level convicted drug dealer, said Friday she didn't have anything illegal when police broke down her antique front door that cost about $3,500 to replace.

The real estate agent said police questioned her about the cash -- she claims it was between $6,000 and $7,000 -- found in an envelope on her nightstand.

She claimed it was rent money paid to her by tenants at the nine properties she owns.

She never reported the incident until the FBI approached her during their Detroit police corruption probe in 2015, at which time, she now admits, she lied and told the FBI Detroit police took the cash.

She said the Detroit police who raided her home were "cocky" and she felt "violated," so when the FBI questioned her, she lied because she was angry.

The trial is expected to continue at 8:30 a.m. Monday and could last into July, according to one of the attorneys involved in the case.

In addition to the federal criminal case, a total of at least eleven Detroit police have been named in civil lawsuits alleging similar misconduct since summer 2015. Hansberry is named in multiple.