A former veteran Huntsville police officer was sentenced Tuesday to two years in federal prison for his guilty plea to a conspiracy charge that he bribed a rookie cop to have drug trafficking charges dismissed against a drug dealer.

Instead of taking a bribe, however, the rookie cop reported it, leading to a city and FBI undercover investigation. The rookie cop was also shorted on the bribe money by the veteran cop and drug dealers.

Former Huntsville Police Officer Lewis Bernard Hall, of Merdianville, was sentenced during a hearing in Birmingham by U.S. District Judge Madeline Haikala. Hall is to report to prison May 31.

Once released, Hall is to serve one year under the supervision of the U.S. Probation Office and perform 100 hours of community service, Haikala ordered.

Haikala told Hall that while sentencing any police officer for a crime is difficult, his was a particularly difficult one because of the contributions Hall had made while on the police force. Those contributions included being honored as a 1993 cadet for apprehension of a fugitive, a medal of meritorious service for helping bust a major car theft ring, helping a man escape from a burning vehicle in 1999 and in 2010 being honored as precinct Officer of the Year. "Those are tremendous contributions," Haikala said.

But Haikala said she also had to balance the nature of the crime "and the offense is a serious one."

Hall had pleaded guilty in February 2015 to one count of conspiracy.

Under a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office the other charges in Hall's indictment - bribery, obstruction of justice, and making a false statement to investigators - were dismissed. Hall also has surrendered his law enforcement license and agree to never again seek work as an officer.

Assistant U.S. Attorney George Martin had recommended the 24-month sentence.

Hall's attorney, Robert B. Tuten, had hoped for a little less based on Hall's cooperation in the case and testimony against one of the co-defendants. He said he was grateful that it wasn't a longer sentence.

Tuten told Haikala that there is no excuse for what Hall did, but a reason why it may have happened is that he was trying to help out with medical bills for his parents. Hall's mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and his father was then diagnosed with cancer. "The lure of easy money caused him to make this big mistake," he said.

Hall has gotten his commercial driver's license for a truck driving career, Tuten said.

Hall told Haikala he saw it - the bribery scheme - as a way out. "I ask for forgiveness and a second chance," he said.

Martin said that while Hall cooperated and gave prosecutors what they needed to charge the person ultimately responsible, Hall had taken an oath more than 20 years ago to uphold the law. "He violated his oath," he said.

Resources to investigate the case also could have been put to use in other areas of law enforcement, Martin added.

But far worse than all of that was the impact he had on Huntsville Police Officer Tory Green, the rookie police officer Hall tried to bribe. Green did the right thing, Martin said. "He wanted to bring this dirty cop to justice," Martin said.

In a sentencing memorandum Martin laid out the allegations against Hall and two co-defendants , Cedric Ryans and Willie Leggs, who were charged with trying to bribe Green to "fix" a drug trafficking case.

Memorandum

According to that sentencing memorandum:

Hall was a 21-year veteran of the Huntsville Police Department and worked out of the North Precinct. Green was a young officer who worked out of the North Precinct with Hall.

Ryans was an associate and long-time friend of Leggs. Before and during the conspiracy, Ryans hid tens of thousands of dollars of Leggs' drug proceeds at his house. Leggs was serving a five-year term of federal probation following a conviction and 188-month sentence for conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine.

On July 29, 2014, Green conducted a traffic stop of Leggs and found about 3 ounces of cocaine during a search of the passenger compartment of Leggs' car. Following his search of Leggs' car, Green turned the investigation over to investigators with the STAC unit, a multi-jurisdictional drug task force.

Based on this search, Leggs was taken into custody and later charged with trafficking in cocaine in state court. This event also put Leggs at risk of revocation of his federal supervised release and a new federal drug charge.

After hearing about the traffic stop and cocaine found in Leggs' car, Ryans told Leggs that he knew a police officer who could help make the case go away. The police officer Ryans knew was Hall.

Ryans and Hall rode motorcycles together.

The plan was to get Hall to offer Green money to say that the search of Leggs' car was bad. Leggs agreed with Ryans' plan and told Ryans that he could use money from the stash of cash hidden at Ryans' house to pay the bribe.

On July 31, 2014, Ryans approached Hall and asked if he would agree to talk to Green and offer him $5,000 to obtain his assistance in making the criminal case based on the seizure of cocaine from Leggs' car go away. Ryans was using Hall as the middleman because Ryans did not know Green and did not want to approach him directly.

Hall agreed and proposed Ryans' bribery scheme to Green. Hall told Green that if he would report that his "wingspan" search of the vehicle was too broad, he would be paid "five stacks," meaning $5,000.

Green reported Hall's offer of payment to fix Leggs' case to his superiors, which led to a covert criminal investigation with several recorded conversations between Green and Hall. The recordings corroborated the information reported by Green.

To further the investigation and determine if Hall would pay the bribe, Green told Hall he would go along with the scheme, and investigators spread word that Green did report that his search was improper. The FBI joined the investigation at the request of the Huntsville Police Department.

Over the course of the next couple of weeks, Ryans, with Leggs' agreement, took money from Leggs' stash on several occasions and said he was giving it to Hall to pay the bribe.

Although Leggs gave Ryans a total of $17,000 to pay as the bribe, Ryans only gave Hall a total of $8,000.

In an attempt to keep the bribe money for himself, Hall explained to Green that Leggs did not have the bribe money to pay as promised.

Playing his role in the investigation, Green expressed his displeasure about not getting paid and Hall paid him $1,000.

Hall kept the remaining money and used it to pay for car repairs.

In November 2014, Hall became suspicious when Green was transferred from the North Precinct to the Mayor's office. Hall met with Green a few times during that month about Green sticking to the story.

"Officer Green felt threatened by the defendant at times during the investigation," according to the memorandum.

"The defendant (Hall) attempted to take advantage of his relationship with a much younger and less experienced officer, an officer who respected the defendant and was eager to learn policing from him," according to Martin's memorandum. "Despite his loyalty to the defendant, and his shock when the defendant first made the bribe offer, Officer Green made the right choice."