Officer Accused Of Alerting Suspects Pleads Guilty

INDIANAPOLIS -- A former Indianapolis police officer accused of revealing information that let several drug suspects avoid arrest last year has pleaded guilty in the case, the federal government said.

Noble Duke, 39, of Indianapolis, pleaded guilty Friday to unlawfully disclosing the contents of federally authorized wiretaps with the intent to obstruct or impede a criminal investigation, according to Timothy Morrison, acting U.S. attorney for Indiana's southern district.

Duke was monitoring phone conversations in one court-authorized wiretap case but was aware of another one -- a case in which officers would try to arrest 36 people on drug trafficking charges -- being conducted in the same room at the Indianapolis FBI office, Morrison's office said.

The federal government alleges that someone asked Duke to find out information about the other investigation last spring. Duke eventually told this person that certain people's phone conversations were being monitored, that an indictment was pending, and that police officers would try to arrest people on a certain day, the government alleges.

On June 21, officers arrested 18 of the 36 people they wanted to capture; three subsequently surrendered. The other 15 avoided arrest "due at least in part to the knowledge" provided by Duke that officers were going to be looking for them, Morrison's office said in a news release Monday.

"It's damaging enough that the arrest warrants were served, among these individuals, half of them were gone," Morrison said. "Some of that had to be a result of the word being passed around."

Duke was charged on March 18, not long after he resigned from the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, the news release said.

"It's no problem for someone in that criminal type of element to take somebody's life, let alone a police officer's life," said Bill Owensby, Fraternal Order of Police Local 86 president. "It's a scary thing, and I think we're without a doubt in a better place -- a better police department without him."

Duke could receive a prison sentence of up to five years and a fine of up to $250,000, the news release said. He is expected to be sentenced within the next 70 days.