At a time when Asbury Park seemed overrun with street violence and gunfire, detectives set their eyes and ears on a group of gangsters who congregated on two dead-end streets in the city.

For 14 months, detectives conducted surveillance and listened to wiretapped telephone conversations among members of the Bloods and Crips street gangs who were working together to further their criminal endeavors.

What the investigators uncovered was an enterprise that had their hands in just about every crime imaginable, from stealing toothbrushes to drug dealing, robberies, burglaries, weapons offenses and shootings.

But what the detectives hadn’t imagined they would uncover was an Asbury Park police officer who was helping the gangsters escape detection.

It was in December of 2013 when detectives listened to wiretapped phone conversations and picked up the voice of Officer Keith German, a 16-year veteran of the Asbury Park police force, talking to James Fair, a leader of the Bloods.

On a day when gang members were plotting to shoot a rival, German, while on duty, was constantly pestering Fair to hang fliers in Asbury Park shops.

The detectives went to the local businesses and found the fliers. On them were photographs of a woman and the words, “the face of HIV."

Later that day, the planned shooting was foiled because police listened to intercepted phone calls about the plot and interrupted it.

More:Jury told cop worked with gang as shootings riddled Asbury

But in later wiretapped conversations, German was heard tipping off Fair to the wiretap investigation, and other gang members were heard talking about “a cop" who had informed them that one of their own had been arrested with a gun. That cop was German.

As it turned out, German’s motivation in helping the gangsters was to disparage the woman pictured on the fliers because she had rebuffed his advances.

Meanwhile, gang members engaged in regular, organized shoplifting sprees, incessant drug dealing, robberies and burglaries, while trading weapons back and forth.

More:'Beefing,' bad blood, guns in Asbury Park: Dead End trial

Then, in February 2014, dozens of suspected gang members and some of their drug customers were rounded up at the culmination of the “Operation Dead End" investigation. At a news conference to announce the arrests, it was revealed that German was among them.

In all, 53 people were charged with a variety of crimes in the “Dead End" probe. All but three secured plea bargains. The three remaining defendants took their cases to trial.

During a case that spanned the entire summer, German, 48, of Tinton Falls stood trial with Fair, 29, of Asbury Park, and Haneef Walker, 25, an alleged member of the Crips from Asbury Park.

Prosecutors paraded a long cast of diverse characters before the jury to testify about neighborhood beefs and rivalries, shootings, robberies, burglaries, drug sales, community guns and shoplifting trips in which gang members would clear entire store shelves of expensive electronics. The trial offered an intimate glimpse into the tactics that gang members used to avoid arrest, including making false reports of gunfire and also having their allies fire weapons across town to divert police from their activities.

More:Asbury gang members tried to fool cops with gunshots, jury told

More:Ex-Asbury cop Keith German: 'She did it to herself'

The trial also revealed communications German had with and about the woman who had rejected him. The conversations appeared to reveal a bizarre obsession he had with ruining her reputation.

In some intercepted phone conversations, German told Fair that he spoke with her, and she “sounded like she was going to kill herself." German went on to tell Fair, “She’s not taking any blame for her lifestyle. …She did it to herself."

More:'You're a creepy stalker': More texts revealed in ex-Asbury cop's trial

More:'You need a straitjacket': Stalking behavior detailed in Dead End trial

In the midst of the trial, German went on the lam. Authorities tracked him to North Carolina and brought him back to court. Meanwhile, testimony went on as a chair at the defense table stood empty for weeks.

German arrived back in court just in time for Dorothy Howard Brown, the subject of the derogatory fliers, to take the witness stand and tearfully testify about how the police officer had tried to ruin her.

More:Asbury cop skips his own trial; witness recants testimony

More:Fugitive ex-Asbury cop Keith German found at N.C. strip mall

After more than three months of trial, the jury on Sept. 27 convicted German of eight crimes – three counts of official misconduct, harassment, conspiracy to commit stalking, hindering the apprehension of gang members, unlawfully accessing a police database to help gang members, and computer theft related to that unlawful access.

More:Dead End trial: Guilty verdict on most charges for ex-cop, gang members

Fair was convicted of 78 crimes, and Walker was convicted of 25 crimes. Their wide variety of offenses included an overarching racketeering conspiracy.

Following the verdict, Fair pleaded guilty in an unrelated case to a role in a burglary plot that ended in the murder of a Red Bank schoolteacher. He had been charged with three other defendants with the Sept. 14, 2009, murder of Jonelle Melton, 33, of Neptune City. Authorities said the beloved social studies teacher at Red Bank Middle School was slain when men planning to break into a drug dealer’s apartment realized they mistakenly broke into the wrong apartment.

Fair last month pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit armed burglary, admitting that he took part in the plot but never went along with the others to commit the burglary.

More:'Dead End' gangster admits plotting botched burglary that led to teacher's death

The case of the three “Dead End’’ defendants is on the docket this week, when all three face almost certain dead-end trips to prison.

German is scheduled to be sentenced for his crimes at 9 a.m. Tuesday. Walker’s sentencing is scheduled for 9 a.m. Wednesday. Fair will learn his fate at 9 a.m. Thursday.

The sentencing hearings will be before Superior Judge Joseph W. Oxley at the Monmouth County Courthouse in Freehold. Turn to APP.com and to the Asbury Park Press each day to learn the results.

Note: Court events are often subject to last-minute changes and adjournments.

Kathleen Hopkins: 732-643-4202; Khopkins@app.com