Cop held in murder plot

When Chicago Police Officer Jerome Finnigan talked to a fellow indicted cop about killing another officer providing information against them in a corruption probe, he worried about leaving fingerprints on a photo of the target, according to charges filed Wednesday.

But he didn't worry about the cop sitting next to him. He believed they were in the plot together, federal prosecutors said, and that both would benefit from hiring someone to kill their former fellow officer.

Authorities involved in the investigation said Finnigan had good reason to feel comfortable; they could not recall a Chicago police officer ever wearing a wire to gather evidence on another city cop.

Until now. The other officer talking to Finnigan about whether to hire
a gang member or a professional hit man for the slaying was secretly
recording the conversations, and the FBI and federal prosecutors were
listening in.



Finnigan, 44, already at the center of a widening probe of corruption,
kidnapping and robbery in the Police Department's Special Operations
Section, was charged Wednesday with plotting the murder-for-hire of a
former police officer. The unit polices high-crime areas and focuses on
making gang and drug arrests.

The police officer who wore the wire began cooperating recently and
immediately told investigators of the plot to kill another former SOS
team member, authorities said. The man is no longer a police officer,
but he has been named in several civil lawsuits that claimed he was
part of Finnigan's team that robbed, kidnapped and falsely arrested
people over several years.