CHICAGO — Narcotics enforcement officers conducting a long-term investigation on Chicago’s West Side launched an entirely separate investigation of a different drug operation after a courier from the second group offered free heroin samples to an undercover cop, prosecutors say.
Jacques Thompson allegedly handed a free bag of heroin and his phone number to a disguised officer as the cop was working the streets near Lexington and Central Park in Homan Square late last year. Thompson told the officer that he worked for a different operation nearby, officials said.
The undercover cop took the sample and phone number from Thompson, and investigators began investigating Thompson’s operation, too, said Victor Aberdeen, a Cook County prosecutor, during Thompson’s bail hearing.
“In this case, the undercover surveillance officer was monitoring a drug operation when the defendant walked up with the free sample and told the officer, ‘I’m the competition from around the corner,'” Aberdeen told Judge Kelly McCarthy.
Aberdeen says that Thompson was part of a “call ahead” operation in which another member of the operation also delivered heroin and fentanyl to police.
Investigators bought heroin and fentanyl from Thompson on December 29, January 19, and February 22, Aberdeen said. Another person delivered drugs to officers on January 5 and January 11, he said.
Thompson’s only felony background is two narcotics convictions, one in 2013 and the other in 2014, according to Aberdeen.
Assistant Public Defender Catherine Stockslager said that Aberdeen didn’t show any proof that Thompson gave anything to the undercover cops. She also pointed out that, even though Aberdeen kept saying that the drug operation gave heroin and fentanyl to undercover officers, only heroin was mentioned in the written complaints.
Judge McCarthy released Thompson on his own recognizance. He’s charged with three counts of manufacture-delivery of heroin.