Rummana Hussain | Tuesday, September 9, 2008

CHICAGO -- A Chicago Police officer has been charged with helping a Crystal Lake man frame his estranged wife by falsely arresting her on gun and drug charges and then testifying at her trial.

Slawomir Plewa, a seven-year Chicago Police veteran, was in on the scheme, which involved Bogdan Mazur, 48, and an uncharged co-defendant planting a .22-caliber pistol, cocaine and cannabis in Sylwia Marcinczyk's Toyota Highlander's spare tire, authorities said Tuesday.

Plewa lied to his colleagues when he told them an anonymous source gave him information leading to the April 1, 2007, arrest and later gave false testimony at Marcinczyk's bench trial, Assistant Cook County State's Attorney Lynn McCarthy said.

Mazur's wife spent nearly two weeks in jail following the arrest but was eventually found innocent for the drug and weapon charges, her lawyer Steven Messner said.

Circuit Judge Adam Bourgeois Jr. ordered Plewa, 30, and Mazur, held in lieu of $250,000 bail.

Plewa, currently working with the narcotics and gang intelligence unit in the Grand Central District, was stripped of his powers last month.

Bourgeois Jr. ordered Mazur, a Polish citizen here illegally, and Plewa, a Polish-born U.S. citizen, to surrender their passports. He also ordered Plewa not to have any firearms, which automatically places him on no-pay status with the Police Department -- a ruling which concerned Plewa's attorney Dan Herbert.

Herbert said Plewa is an exemplary officer who did nothing wrong when he arrested Marcinczyk. Mazur was one of Plewa's confidential informants and the two men never had a social relationship, according to Herbert, an FOP lawyer.

Mazur, Herbert said, was simply acting on a tip.

"This a case where he did exactly what he was supposed to do," Herbert said. "The only thing he's guilty of is being an aggressive police officer."