Sunrise Police Officer Suspended, Investigated Over Providing List Of Confidential Informants To Media

SUNRISE (CBSMiami) – Sunrise Police Sgt. Roger Krege is under criminal investigation and suspended with pay while he's investigated on allegations that he copied a secure list of confidential informants working with the city's police department and provided that information to a South Florida media outlet, according to Sunrise Police and a police search warrant obtained by CBS4 News.

According to the warrant, Sunrise Police searched a pair of email addresses for Krege, a 17-year veteran of the force, related to how he might have transmitted the document containing the highly sensitive information regarding confidential informants.

The warrant states that, "The exposure and/or illegal copying of the article put every confidential informant in grave danger and threatened the personal safety of every detective working within the VIN (Vice Intelligence and Narcotics) Unit and working with the confidential informants."

The warrant also states that the information regarding the informants is accessible by a "very small number of people within the Sunrise Police Department" and that "the article containing the identity of every confidential information belonging to the Sunrise Police Department was recovered from a personal safe located within (Krege's) home."

The warrant says Krege used his position within the agency's IT unit to get access to the information and that he provided it to a media outlet. The document says as a result of the search police recovered a "USB drive containing several zipped files with multiple email attachments."

The warrant indicates that there was immediate fallout from the publication of the information.

"Due to the release of active criminal intelligence, much of which was revealed publicly in a subsequent newspaper article, the entire Sunrise Police VIN Unit had to stop all active operations and were force to close down their 'off site' undercover facility and relocate to a different location for the safety of all personnel," the warrant states.

It's not clear from the document when the newspaper article was published, what it was about or whether harm came to anyone associated with the underlying criminal investigations. The search warrants says Krege is being investigated for the following crimes: unlawful copying of trade secrets, official misconduct and disclosure or use of confidential criminal justice information.

According to information published on the Sunrise Police Department's webpage, the Vice Intelligence and Narcotics Unit investigates major criminal organizations and drug organizations, adding that the unit investigates cases of prostitution, narcotics, gambling and liquor law violations. Regarding the Unit's informants, the warrant says "These informants cooperate with the agency in a mutual understanding of confidentiality in order to protect the confidential informant's identity and maintain the agency's integrity in intelligence gathering."

CBS4 News reached out to Sunrise Police Department for comment. We received this statement, "On Thursday September 12, 2019, Sgt. Roger Krege was placed on administrative leave pending an ongoing investigation."

Krege is a sergeant in the Road Patrol division and he was the former president of the department's Fraternal Order of Police. CBS4 News reached out to him at a recent address and at several phone numbers but we could not reach him. CBS4 News also reached out to his attorney and the police union but no one is commenting on these allegations.