BEVERLY HILLS, MO (KTVI-FOX2now.com)—
While other media outlets are following our lead reporting on unlicensed officers in general, FOX 2 is naming names and getting action. Investigator Chris Hayes found many of the unlicensed officers at police departments along Natural Bridge Road. We spotted Justin Biancardi on the police beat, but without the state required license. He was riding in a Beverly Hills Police patrol car that was running radar on Natural Bridge. Not only doesn't Biancardi have full police training and the required license, but he's also mentioned in a federal indictment regarding his former partner Leon Pullen.FBI agents arrested Pullen, claiming he raped prostitutes and stole from them. Biancardi is named by his initials J.B. as being part of the "extortion scheme." We confirmed with three separate sources that J.B. stands for Justin Biancardi. Yet after the controversy, Biancardi hopped to a neighboring police department, Beverly Hills.
Police Chief Joe Collins refused to explain why he hired an unlicensed officer with this troubled past. We caught up with him at the Department.
I asked, "Why would you bring on an officer that the Feds accuse of extortion?" Collins responded, "Would you turn the camera off?" [Hayes] "Do you do background checks on your officers?" [Collins] "Would you please leave?" [Hayes] "Will you step outside and come talk to us? [Collins] "I'm not going to do this, I told you once." [Hayes] "I want to know if you do background checks on your officers."
Collins told me off camera that he uses some officers without licenses, but says they only work as support staff.
It's the same thing we heard in February from the town next door Uplands Park.
Lamont Aikens told me in his own words, he's not even an officer, yet Uplands Park armed him with a badge and last November he admitted getting into a squad car and pursuing a suspect. The suspect later hit an innocent woman killing her.
Uplands Park hired a new chief after our report and he says he's cleaning up the department and consulting St. Louis County Police to do it.
Justin Biancardi left Beverly Hills the day we caught him in uniform. He says he's not working as a police officer anymore.
St. Louis County announced an unlicensed cop crackdown a few weeks after we first started naming names in February.
