HollyMatkinOmaha, NE – An alleged pimp who falsely reported that he was a victim of a crime was caught by interrogation room cameras as he stashed his crack cocaine in the ceiling of the Omaha Police Department (video below).
The Douglas County attorney recently released surveillance footage of the two-hour long encounter, which took place in October of 2017, WOWT reported.
Police said that Thomas Hartman, 25, came to the Omaha PD to report that his cousin, Trentell Clifton, had pointed a gun at him, and robbed him of his $65 Samsung Galaxy phone and $445 cash, ABC News reported.
Officers detained Clifton, but soon learned that he was at a mall when the robbery allegedly occurred.
“You just need to come clean, because I have visuals of him from the time of this robbery. He’s on the other side of town,” an officer told Hartman in the video.
Meanwhile, in another room, Hartman’s 17-year-old “girlfriend,” Jaelyn Jackson, was telling police that she had been performing sexual favors in exchange for money, under Hartman’s direction, WOWT reported.
“Babe! Babe!” Hartman yelled in the video, in an attempt to communicate with Jackson through the wall. “I think they’re going to take me to jail. Go get that money and bond me out, Jaelyn.”
Ninety minutes later, while alone in the interrogation room, the video showed Hartman placing a chair on top of a table, and climbing onto the seat. He then reached up above the ceiling tiles.
Police rushed into the room, and initially thinking Hartman was making a poor attempt at an escape.
“You’re at the friggin’ police station, man,” an officer pointed out to him once he was in handcuffs. “And you just put a chair on the table and tried to get up in the ceiling…”
The video showed an officer as he searched the ceiling after Hartman had been removed from the room. He located a wallet, but didn’t see a small bundle of cocaine as it fell to the floor.
Later, as the camera continued to record, a technician noticed the bundle on the ground.
“Mother…” she was heard saying in the video.
A total of eight individually wrapped packages of crack cocaine were eventually recovered from the ceiling, ABC News reported.
Jackson confirmed that the robbery never took place, and Hartman eventually admitted that he lied to investigators.
He was charged with possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, as well as false reporting.
Hartman was convicted on the drug charge, and sentenced to probation for 9 months.
According to WOWT, Hartman was currently being held at the Nebraska Diagnostic and Evaluation Center in relation to a separate case involving drug offenses and terroristic threats.
You can see the surveillance video of the incident below: