Live updates: Former cops in Paterson's 'robbery squad' sentenced in federal court

Matthew Torres spared prison sentence

PATERSON — Former city cop Matthew Torres was spared a prison sentence despite being part of the “robbery squad” of rogue officers who patrolled Paterson looking for people they could get away with robbing.

In explaining her decision to sentence Torres to probation, United States District Court Judge Katharine Hayden cited Torres’ lack of direct participation in the assaults that happened during the shakedowns, his “genuine moral distress” about the wrongdoing and the fact that he came forward to reveal the crimes to authorities before any charges were filed against him.

Hayden described the Paterson police department as being a place during the crimes that was “bankrupt of simple human values.”

“Yes, he failed Paterson,” the judge said of Torres, “but the police department was also failing him and others.”

Torres was the third of five convicted ex-cops scheduled for sentencing on Thursday as authorities bring to conclusion one of the worst scandals in Paterson police department history. Torres in 2019 had admitted taking $800 from the passenger in a car he illegally stopped in December 2017.

“I’m not a bad person, I did bad things,” Torres, 33, said during the hearing.

Torres told the court that at one point he aspired to become chief of police. He said that he had tried to get transferred away from the “robbery squad,” but his requests were rejected. Torres also said he attempted to leave Paterson to join the Woodland Park police department but was unsuccessful.

The judge during the proceeding talked about what she called “an exception” letter Torres submitted to the court, one in which he expressed remorse for mistreating people. “I wish I could tell them face to face how sorry I am,” Hayden said, quoting the letter.

Hayden also read part of a letter from Torres’ wife in which she talked about her husbands struggles as a Paterson cop being “survival of the fittest.”

Torres now works as a restaurant manager, while his wife is a nurse. The judge noted that the couple became engaged and got married while the federal investigation was unfolding. The couple has two young children.

Torres’ lawyer, John Whipple, said the young officer got drawn into the criminal conspiracy “reluctantly.”

But Assistant United States Attorney Thomas Kearny said, “Mr. Torres fell into the lure of easy money.”

— Joe Malinconico

Eudy Ramos sentenced to 24 months

PATERSON — Former city police officer Eudy Ramos was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison on Thursday for shaking down known drug dealers he illegally stopped and routinely assaulting suspects who tried to run away from him.

Ramos was the second of five convicted ex-cops scheduled for sentencing on Thursday as authorities bring to conclusion one of the worst scandals in the history of the Paterson Police Department.

Ramos previously had admitted stealing $10,000 in an instance in 2017 and taking smaller amounts in other cases, as well as beating suspects multiple times.

“It was always my dream to be a police officer and serve the city where I grew up,” Ramos said during his sentencing.

Rogue officers profiled:Seven guilty Paterson cops: Who are they?

But at some point, he said he “deviated” from that mission. “There is no one else responsible for my wrongdoing but myself,” Ramos said. “I wish I could go back in time and undo it, but I can’t.”

After losing his police job, Ramos started driving a truck and eventually opened his own trucking business with five 18-wheelers, his lawyer said.

— Joe Malinconico

Jonathan Bustios sentenced to 24 months

Former city police officer Jonathan Bustios was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison on Thursday morning for robbing people he illegally stopped and searched in Paterson from 2016 until 2018.

Bustios, who has worked at an IHOP restaurant since he lost his police job, apologized for his crimes and attributed them to the culture within the Paterson police department.

“I feel like the culture of the whole department was a certain way,” Bustios said during his sentencing hearing. “At that time, I didn’t feel like anything we were doing was wrong. I felt like that was the way of the department. I regret everything. Everything I did, I regret.”

United States District Court Judge Katharine Hayden noted that Bustios’ could have been as high as 37 months, but said she decided to give him less time that that because of his cooperation with federal investigators.

In imposing the two-year sentence, the judge said, “I can’t go any lower than that because of the impact on the community.”

Hayden said during the proceeding that the culture at the IHOP where Bustios now works was “1,000 percent better than” the one he encountered as a Paterson police officer. Hayden said she believed that Bustios’ crimes were a product of that culture.

Assistant United States Attorney Jihee Suh praised Bustios’ cooperation with the FBI, noting that he was one of two defendants in the case who did not delete incriminating messages from their phones. Suh said Bustios was the first suspected cop in the case to begin working with authorities.

“It was only through Mr. Bustios’ cooperation that the full extent of the conspiracy became known and the blue wall of silence started crumbling,” Suh said.

Bustios was the first of five convicted ex-cops scheduled for sentencing on Thursday as federal authorities bring to conclusion one of the worst scandals in Paterson police department history.

Bustios pleaded guilty in December 2018 to conspiring to deprive individuals of their civil rights and to extortion, but the United States Attorney’s Office delayed his sentencing until after he testified last May against Sgt. Michael Cheff, who supervised the rogue officers.

In one instance, Bustios admitted taking a bag containing $1,800 in cash from inside a BMW he searched but let the two occupants go free without filing any police reports about the incident. In another case, he said he offered a suspect a deal in which he would not file any criminal charges in exchange for a gun.

— Joe Malinconico

Other former officers await sentencing

After Bustios, Ramos and Torres, the others scheduled for sentencing hearings on Thursday were Frank Toledo and Daniel Pent. Their sentencings were postponed to Friday. Cheff’s sentencing, originally planned Friday, will be Monday, Sept. 12.

All six officers were convicted of two counts that set a total maximum of 30 years in prison, according to news releases from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. But those maximum terms have been lowered in sentencing reports that had not been made public prior to Thursday.

Toledo, Pent and Ramos pleaded guilty to conspiring to deprive individuals of their civil rights, to using unreasonable and excessive force against individuals in Paterson, and to filing a false police report.

Torres pleaded guilty in May 2019 to conspiring to deprive individuals of their civil rights and to filing a false police report. Cheff was convicted of those same two crimes.

The FBI probe into the self-proclaimed “robbery squad” started late in 2016 and continued for several years, with the first arrests — those of Bustios and Ramos — happening in April 2018. The other four rogue cops were charged with their crimes in a series of arrests that stretched out over the subsequent 21 months.

The federal investigation also resulted in federal prison for two Paterson cops who were not directly involved with the “robbery squad.” FBI agents investigating the illegal shakedowns learned about allegations that another patrol officer, Ruben McAusland, was selling drugs from his Paterson police vehicle while on-duty.

With the help of a confidential informant, the FBI gathered video and audio recordings of McAusland’s drug sales over the course of months and arrested him in April 2018, nine days after Bustios and Ramos were apprehended.

McAusland’s arrest led to another case when investigators found on his cell phone a video recording of him and his police partner, Roger Then, assaulting a suicide patient at a hospital emergency room in March 2018.

McAusland was sentenced to 66 months in federal prison after admitted the drug dealing and hospital attack. He currently is being held at the Federal Correctional Institution in Milan, Michigan and is scheduled for release in March 2024. Then served a six-month prison term for his role in the ER incident and was released in early 2020.

Joe Malinconico is editor of Paterson Press. Email: editor@patersonpress.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Live updates: Paterson rogue police officers sentenced today