Former Md. police officer Philip Dupree convicted on civil rights offense
A former Maryland police officer who was fired by four small departments in the D.C. area in less than a decade was convicted Monday of illegally pepper-spraying a motorist during a traffic stop but acquitted of a charge related to his filing of a court affidavit that prosecutors said gave a false account of the incident.
Philip Dupree, 40, was fired by three departments in Prince George’s County, including for allegedly using excessive force, before being hired by a fourth department, in the town of Fairmount Heights, where he was working when the pepper-spraying occurred on Aug. 4, 2019. A jury in U.S. District Court in Washington convicted him Monday of violating the motorist’s civil rights with the burst of pepper spray but found him not guilty of obstructing justice.
The motorist, Torrence Sinclair, now 24, was handcuffed and shouting obscenities when Dupree pepper-sprayed him in the face at close range, defense and prosecution lawyers agreed. Dupree later asserted in a court affidavit that Sinclair had tried to bite him, which prosecutors said was untrue.
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“The defendant punished Mr. Sinclair because he didn’t like him mouthing off,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sanjay H. Patel said in his closing argument last week, adding, “The defendant didn’t like that [Sinclair] questioned his traffic stop.” Patel noted that the pepper-spraying was “committed by someone with a badge and a gun, someone sworn to serve and protect the community.”
Sinclair, who did not testify in the week-long trial, was charged with assault based on Dupree’s affidavit about the supposed biting. The assault charge was later dropped, and Patel called the affidavit “a flat-out lie,” saying Dupree “knew what he did was a crime and he tried to cover it up.”
Dupree’s affidavit was the basis for the obstruction charge that the jury rejected.
To gain a conviction on the obstruction count in federal court, prosecutors had to prove that Dupree wrote a false court affidavit with the intent of thwarting a future federal investigation of the incident in D.C., where the pepper-spraying occurred. Based on a question that jurors submitted to the judge during their deliberations, it appeared they were not debating whether the sworn statement was truthful but whether Dupree, in signing it, was intending to forestall an eventual federal probe.
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The jury apparently did not agree unanimously on the prosecution’s allegation about his intent. Dupree did not testify in the trial.
Maryland state records show that Dupree was fired by the Capitol Heights Police Department in 2013, by the District Heights Police Department in 2015, by Prince George’s Community College’s police force in 2018, and by the Fairmount Heights department after he was criminally charged with violating Sinclair’s civil rights. All of the departments are just outside D.C.
The firings in each community came after repeated citizen complaints about Dupree’s conduct as an officer, according to evidence in his trial. In District Heights, he was fired for repeatedly using excessive force and for a pattern of policy violations that included carrying an unauthorized AR-15 assault rifle while on duty, according to Maryland court records.
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When Dupree challenged his District Heights firing in a lawsuit in Prince George’s County Circuit Court, a judge ruled against him, saying that by “the spring of 2015, when Officer Dupree’s [one-year] probationary period was about to end, his conduct had generated more citizen complaints than that of any other officer in the District Heights Police Department.”
After the pepper-spraying incident, Sinclair sued Dupree and the town of Fairmount Heights and settled the civil case out of court for a “six-figure” payment, according to Sinclair’s lawyer, who declined to specify the exact sum.
Jurors in the criminal trial deliberated most of Friday and part of Monday before delivering their verdicts shortly after 2 p.m.
Violating a person’s civil rights while acting in a law enforcement capacity is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. However, depending on the circumstances of a case and a defendant’s background, advisory federal sentencing guidelines often recommend a shorter period of incarceration than the statutory maximum. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly did not immediately set a sentencing date.
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Dupree’s lawyer, Christopher Macchiaroli, declined to comment on the verdicts as he left the courtroom Monday. He argued during the trial that prosecutors had failed prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Dupree wasn’t legitimately in fear for his safety when he pepper-sprayed Sinclair. He also argued that Dupree was not intending to obstruct a future federal investigation when he filed the affidavit.
“Mr. Sinclair was resisting the entire time,” Macchiaroli told the jury, noting that other officers at the scene also described Sinclair as loud and menacing during the pre-dawn traffic stop.
While Dupree was outside his police car, Sinclair, handcuffed and alone in the front passenger seat, tried to put the police vehicle in drive, attempted to escape by rolling down a window and contorted his body to try to get his manacled hands in front of him, the other officers said in their initial reports. But prosecutors said those officers later told federal authorities that the pepper-spraying was unjustified.
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“Their statements changed,” Macchiaroli said in his closing argument. “Their statements changed significantly when they realized there was an [FBI] investigation.”
In a separate state case related to the traffic stop, Dupree has pleaded not guilty in Maryland to charges of kidnapping, perjury and official misconduct. That case has been on hold while the federal trial in Washington was underway.
Dupree and five co-defendants face federal charges in Maryland for allegedly falsely reporting thefts of their debit cards or vehicles to collect insurance money while they were police officers. Dupree has pleaded not guilty in that case.
In the Fairmount Heights case, Sinclair, with his sister as a passenger, was driving in Maryland, headed home to the District, when Dupree activated his emergency lights to stop him, allegedly for speeding. Sinclair pulled over after crossing into the District.
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At 2:16 a.m., after the pepper-spraying, prosecutors said, Dupree told a dispatcher that he would be taking Sinclair to the Prince George’s County jail. Instead, he drove him to the Fairmount Heights police station, where there are no holding cells, prosecutors said. Sinclair was left in handcuffs for hours and not transported to the jail until 5:30 a.m., according to the indictment in the case.
In his affidavit, Dupree omitted details of that detour and made false statements about the events preceding the pepper-spraying and what happened afterward, prosecutors said.
“The other officers on the scene remained calm and collected and tried to de-escalate the situation,” Patel told the jury, adding: “Mr. Sinclair was not a threat. … He was using his mouth not to bite, but to complain about his arrest.”
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