What do you do when the whistleblower sitting in front of you is an unreliable drug addict? Maybe you see some nugget of truth in the story. Maybe you see some way to find reliable evidence that proves that nugget of truth.
Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker, reporters at Philadelphia’s Daily News were confronted with this situation when Benny Martinez walked into the newsroom with a tale of police misconduct. He claimed that narcotics-unit officer Jeffrey Cujdik fabricated evidence in at least two dozen cases. But Benny was not a reliable witness. He was a drug addict and criminal.
One nugget was that officer Cujdik was renting an apartment to Benny. That’s an indication that something was wrong. Benny was being evicted so there was a court hearing coming up that could prove at least one aspect of his story. After attending the hearing, Ruderman and Laker started digging through warrants and found problems.
Those bad arrests lead to more problems with the Philadelphia police department. There were rumors about another police officer sexually assaulting women during police raids. Another group of police officers were raiding corner stores, stealing from them and destroying the video camera coverage. A lawyer for one of the police officers couldn’t understand why they would write a story based on a drug dealer turned informant.
“What do you guys think you are going to do? Win a Pulitzer Prize?” he sneered.
Ruderman and Laker won the Pulitzer Prize for the “Tainted Justice” investigative reporting they did for the police corruption. Busted: A Tale of Corruption and Betrayal in the City of Brotherly Love tells the story of how they discovered, investigated and wrote the story. It documents their shoe leather journalism.
Unfortunately, at the time the book was punished all of the police officers still had their jobs. Some were relegated to desk duty. However in May, Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey fired Jeffrey Cujdik, just weeks after officials announced no charges would be brought in the Tainted Justice case.
Besides the true crime aspect of the book, it’s also an elegy for newspapers. Ruderman ended up at the Daily News after a devastating round of staffing cuts at the sister publication, the Inquirer, threatened her job. Brian Tierney paid $515 million for the newspapers in 2006. They sold for $139 million in bankruptcy in 2010 and then for $55 million in 2012. At times during the story it seemed like the newspaper would close before they finished writing their stories.
The book highlights the importance of the news media and whistleblowers in uncovering corruption.
Sources:
- Buy Busted: A Tale of Corruption and Betrayal in the City of Brotherly Love
on Amazon (affiliate link)
- Covering ‘Tainted Justice’ And Winning A Pulitzer
- Busted Is a Philadelphia Classic
- “Tainted Justice” Police Officer Fired. Will It Take?
- Cops in Pulitzer-Winning ‘Tainted Justice’ Series Won’t Face Charges