Police in Arizona have arrested a Tennessee man who went on the run after being indicted over a scheme to profit from confidential records belonging to the Memphis Police Department (MPD).
On Wednesday, US Marshal Tyreece Miller announced the arrest of Roderick Harvey for bribery of a public servant and violation of a computer act over $10,000.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), working with the US Marshals Two Rivers Violent Fugitive Task Force, tracked Harvey to Phoenix, where he was detained without incident and booked into the Maricopa County Jail.
Miller said: “Despite Harvey’s attempt to evade arrest by traveling over a thousand miles, he was safely apprehended.”
Harvey was one of nine people indicted by a Shelby County Grand Jury on August 6 following a year-long investigation by the TBI that began in June 2020.
The probe was requested by district attorney general Amy Weirich after former Shelby County assistant district attorney Glenda Adams was fired from her role and investigated after allegedly misusing confidential information.
Harvey's alleged co-conspirators include Adams, three former employees of MPD, and a personal injury attorney with Wells & Associates. The TBI investigation found that Adam, Harvey, Egypt Berry, Latausha Blair, Renatta Dillard, Marcus Lewis, Aaron Neglia, Martin Nolan, and Mustafa Sajid "were responsible for an elaborate scheme to profit from the use of confidential information in Memphis police reports.”
Case prosecutor Bryant Dunaway said the scheme involved buying information about traffic crashes from government employees before that information became public.
He said: "It seems to be there's big business in personal injury attorneys and others to acquire information on crash victims, early, before it's available to the public. It's kind of a race to get there."
Adams, Berry, Lewis, Neglia, Nolan and Sajid are all accused of bribing a public servant. Adams, Berry, Blair, Dillard, Neglia and Nolan are accused of a violation of the computer act over $10,000. Adams, Berry and Nolan are accused of official misconduct.
Berry and Dillard were in custody by August 6, and all the other defendants except Harvey made arrangements to turn themselves into law enforcement.
The TBI said the investigation remains ongoing and “more indictments are expected.”