A former Florida deputy was sentenced to 12 years in prison this week after he was convicted of a litany of various charges stemming from allegations that he planted drugs on people he arrested.
Former Jackson County Deputy Zachary Wester’s sentence was handed down at a hearing on Tuesday. The 28-year-old was found guilty on 19 of 67 counts in May that included racketeering, official misconduct, fabricating evidence, perjury, false imprisonment, and possession of controlled substances and drug paraphernalia, according to the Associated Press.
In the summer of 2018, internal affairs investigators found drugs hidden in Wester’s squad car. Prosecutors alleged he used those drugs to plant them in the cars of people he pulled over. Body camera footage showed Wester supposedly holding baggies filled with drugs before searching vehicles but after he had pulled a driver over.
Prosecutor Tom Williams said Wester committed “an egregious breach of the public’s trust,” adding that “people voluntarily grant their government awesome powers they deem necessary for public safety and protection.”
“With that great power comes great responsibility. The defendant made choices to violate that trust and committed crimes against those people he was sworn to protect,” Williams said.
Nearly 120 cases Wester worked on were dropped by prosecutors from 2016 to 2018 because of the accusation that he planted evidence.
One of Wester’s victims was Teresa Odom, who was pulled over for a defective brake light in 2018 and was arrested after the former officer allegedly found a baggie of methamphetamine in her purse. Body camera footage later showed that he had it in his hand before beginning the search.
Odom received four years of probation after pleading no contest, though her conviction has since been thrown out.
“You robbed me of my credibility and being a mother and grandmother over the last two and a half years,” she said. “I wish you no ill will. But you’ll never know what you did to me until you have children of your own.”
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Wester’s wife pleaded for the judge to give her husband a lenient sentence, as did more than 50 others who sent supportive letters to the judge.
“When that career ended, suddenly I watched a part of him and myself as well die,” Rebecca Wester said. “This blow is one that will not be overcome quickly, and honestly one we may never overcome. The Zach that is in the court before you today is a mighty man of God. Has been greatly missed, but the place he has been missed the most is in our home.”
