S.F. COP ACCUSED OF SELLING, USING DRUGS

San Francisco police have accused an officer of selling bogus tablets of
the drug ecstasy while off duty in Hayward, according to departmental
misconduct charges.

Officer Chris Greenman, 33, was accused of two departmental charges of
misconduct for selling the bogus drugs on June 28 and for testing positive
for methamphetamine the same day, according to charges filed with the
Police Commission late Friday. He will have an opportunity to enter a plea
before the full commission on Wednesday night.

Greenman, a five-year department veteran, has been on unpaid suspension
since Hayward police detained him on June 28. He was not arrested and has
not been charged with a crime.

Hayward and San Francisco police have declined comment, saying the case
remains under investigation.

The San Francisco charges could result in Greenman losing his job.

Those charges said that Greenman arranged by telephone to sell 10 tablets
of ecstasy, worth $150, to a woman secretly working as an informant for the
Hayward police.

Greenman, according to the charges, met the woman in a parking lot in
Hayward that was under surveillance.

The woman, whose name was not released, paid Greenman $150 in marked money
provided by the Hayward police.

In return, she received 10 tablets of what was purported to be ecstasy.

"Subsequent testing revealed that the ecstasy (Greenman) sold to the woman
in the controlled buy was not really ecstasy as the accused had
represented," the charges state.

The material sold to the woman was not a controlled substance.

Police would not say what the tablets actually contain.

Sale of fake drugs is still a violation of state law that can result in
felony or misdemeanor charges, according the San Francisco Police

Department. But officers concede the filing of such charges is quite rare.

Hayward police stopped Greenman on the Hayward/San Mateo Bridge after the
sale. They found the marked money in his fanny pack, according to the charges.

After Greenman identified himself as a San Francisco cop, Hayward officers
declined to arrest him. But they did notify SFPD's internal affairs unit,
which launched its own investigation.

Later that same evening, an internal affairs investigator ordered Greenman
to give a urine sample that tested positive for methamphetamine, according
to the charges.

Police also searched Greenman's Livermore home in Alameda County.

Greenman had been assigned to the evening shift of the SFPD's Tenderloin
Task Force until his suspension. He could not be reached for comment.
Because the alleged wrongdoing took place while he was off duty, he is not
being represented by the police union in the misconduct case.

The Hayward police probe could result in the filing of criminal charges in
Alameda County Superior Court by the district attorney's office.

But even if that agency declines to press charges, the officer's police
career in The City may be in jeopardy as a result of the internal affairs
investigation.

Although prosecutors often decline to file charges in cases like
Greenman's, a police agency has wider discretion in disciplining one of its
members if an internal investigation finds evidence of illegal or improper
activity by an officer.

Greenman is accused of conduct that reflects discredit on the department
and of engaging in conduct that subverts the good order of the department,
the charges state.