Former Girlfriend Tells of Selling Drugs for Officer

The ex-girlfriend of veteran state narcotics officer Richard Wayne Parker testified in federal court Wednesday that he gave her cocaine to sell and that she returned the proceeds to him after meeting her buyer.

Monica L. Pitto is the prosecution’s star witness in the retrial of Parker, who is accused of stealing 650 pounds of cocaine from a Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement evidence locker in Riverside over the 1997 Fourth of July weekend.

At the close of Parker’s previous trial in June, a jury deadlocked 10 to 1 for acquittal on the most serious charges against him. Jurors in that trial found Parker guilty of tax fraud, but acquitted him of money laundering and drug possession.

Federal prosecutors are retrying Parker for drug trafficking and conspiracy. As in the first trial, the evidence is largely circumstantial. Pitto’s testimony that Parker gave her drugs is the strongest direct evidence prosecutors have linking Parker to the stolen cocaine.

Defense lawyers have criticized Pitto as an unreliable witness. They say she made a deal with prosecutors and falsely implicated Parker to reduce her own sentence.

Parker has been held without bail since his arrest in July 1998.