A former Atlanta police officer was sentenced to a decade in prison after he admitted being involved in a 2019 robbery while wearing his former APD uniform and badge.
Justin Mikale Thorne, 26, pleaded guilty to multiple felony charges in the armed robbery of rapper Bankroll Freddie, whose real name is Freddie Gladney III, and another man on Oct. 17, 2019, Channel 2 Action News reported.
According to arrest warrants, Thorne misled the two victims by claiming to be an Atlanta police officer, then pointed a gun at Gladney during the robbery at Comfort Inn hotel in Smyrna.
According to warrants, Thorne was dressed as an APD K-9 officer with a bulletproof vest, APD hat and a police belt with a handgun. He approached a room and identified himself as a police officer to get the victims to open the door.
According to warrants, when the door was opened, two unknown suspects rushed the victims with handguns and robbed the victims of an iPhone and around $1,000. It is unclear if those two suspects are also facing charges.
EXCLUSIVE: Surveillance shows disgraced ex cop checking escape route for two armed men. @wsbtv pic.twitter.com/tH4ZEzM0fj
— Michael Seiden (@SeidenWSBTV) May 22, 2023
Thorne had resigned about two weeks before the robbery amid an APD internal investigation for allegedly offering to take money from a suspect in exchange for making an outstanding warrant “go away” in September 2019, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported. Internal investigators approached Thorne and he “chose to abruptly resign on October 1,″ the department said in a statement at the time.
“The Atlanta Police Department assisted Cobb County investigators in positively identifying Thorne in the crimes for which he has been arrested,” the statement continued. “The allegations against him are in absolute conflict with our department’s values and the oaths that our officers are sworn to uphold.”
He had been with the department since October 2017 and worked as a patrol officer in southeast Atlanta.
Gladney, who was born in Arkansas, is signed under Atlanta-based label Quality Control Music, which also represents Migos, Lil Yacthy, Lil Baby and Cardi B. The rapper was among 35 people indicted last year in Arkansas in association with the street gang Every Body Killas, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported.
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