Continued: Police officer accused of corruption pleads not guilty

He filed a false police report, stating that when T.T. moved to shake Roberts' hand, he placed five $20 bills in the officer's hand. Roberts wrote that he later "property-inventoried" the money. But according to the indictment, the money was never put into inventory and Roberts instead "used it for his own private purposes."

Ron Edwards, a friend of Roberts and a member of the Police Community Relations Council, testified Monday before the grand jury that Roberts apparently then gave the money to him. Edwards said he accepted the money from Roberts without any reservations, considering it "a gift from a friend.'' Edwards said Roberts told him to use the money to buy a steak dinner for himself.

According to Edwards, Roberts explained he'd been given the money from an acquaintance in return for agreeing to look up information from the Police Department's computer system. That acquaintance, who reportedly told Roberts he needed the information because he'd supposedly been the victim of a crime, turned out to be the FBI's informant and a former cocaine dealer.

"I knew he [Roberts] had gotten the money from the informant,'' Edwards said.

Nothing in the indictment, however, says anything about T.T. asking for information on behalf of a crime victim.

Roberts is scheduled to appear in federal court at 11 a.m. today.

Dolan to comment today

The Minneapolis Police Department declined to comment Monday because it hadn't seen a copy of the indictment, said spokesman Sgt. Jesse Garcia. Chief Tim Dolan will speak to the media about the indictment today, he said.

Roberts was one of two longtime Minneapolis police officers placed on paid administrative leave by Dolan in April. The other officer was Lt. Lee Edwards, one of five black officers suing the department over allegations of racial discrimination.

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