Deputy allegedly helped drug ring
He’s accused of telling leader how to avoid cops
A veteran Broward Sheriff ’s deputy has been charged in connection with a drug trafficking organization that imported and distributed large quantities of cocaine and heroin in South Florida, according to an arrest affidavit.
Albury Augustus Burrows, 47, is accused of assisting the leader of a drug trafficking organization by briefing him on police tactics and giving advice on how to avoid detectives and prosecution, investigators say. The arrest came after a yearlong investigation by the Broward Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that alleges the ring operated in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, authorites said.
Burrows, who joined the sheriff ’s office
18 years ago, faces charges that include racketeering, tampering with or fabricating evidence and giving false information to a law enforcement officer. He was arrested Monday at the agency’s Port Everglades district where he worked, a spokeswoman for the Broward Sheriff’s Office said.
According to a 113-page arrest warrant affidavit that names 14 alleged accomplices, the drug ring stored narcotics and guns in a Lauderdale Lakes warehouse and distributed drugs throughout northwest and southwest Fort Lauderdale.
A confidential informant, according to the affidavit, bought as much as $7,200 and $9,600 worth of heroin in single transactions from an alleged dealer, Michael Allen, 34, who lived in the 2800 block of Northwest Seventh Street in Fort Lauderdale. Allen was arrested Nov. 15 and is facing some 20 drug charges, including trafficking of cocaine and heroin, records show.
During the investigation, undercover detectives tailed Allen as he made rounds to a storage facility on Sistrunk Boulevard, a Caribbean restaurant and apartment complexes and houses throughout the city, the affidavit said.
During a bust of a Fort Lauderdale house associated with the organization in the 500 block of Northwest 30th Terrace, detectives confiscated $19,000 cash and 357 grams of cocaine, the affidavit said.
“Everyone who wears our uniform swore to serve and protect the residents of Broward County, not abuse their power for a self-serving purpose,” Sheriff Scott Israel said in an email. “Although disappointing, this arrest is yet another example of how the professionals in our agency will follow leads wherever they take them, even if that means arresting a fellow deputy who has done wrong.”
The sheriff’s office, which is conducting an internal affairs investigation, suspended Burrows without pay Monday.
During a bond hearing Tuesday, Judge Kathleen McCarthy read the offenses Burrows is accused of committing, and the deputy at times shook his head no. Burrows is being held in Broward County jail on bonds totaling $261,000.
Burrows will have to show that bond funds come from legal sources before he can be released from jail. Other charges include resisting an officer without violence; tampering in a first-degree felony proceeding and using a two-way device to facilitate a felony.
In 2011, a jury found Burrows not guilty after he was arrested on suspicion of committing grand theft. He was accused of stealing $1,200, part of $2,452 confiscated from a tenant in a Pompano Beach apartment where marijuana was being grown.
Attorney Hunter Davis of the Attorney General’s Office of Statewide Prosecution said after the bond hearing that he could not provide further details on the investigation that includes several alleged codefendants. The office prosecutes crimes that involve multiple judicial circuits in Florida.
Burrows’ lawyer Michael Finesilver also declined to comment.