Update: Greece cop accused of giving drinks to 18 year old friend won't appear in court til October 23rd

Posted at: 10/08/2012 6:05 PM | Updated at: 10/09/2012 12:04 PM
By: Berkeley Brean | WHEC.com

The Greece police officer accused of giving alcohol to a teenage friend was given an appearance ticket by the Sheriff's Office. So he won't appear in Irondequoit Town Court until later this month...

Officer Sam Ross is charged with three counts of unlawfully dealing with a child. Police say on three different occasions, he bought and gave drinks to an 18 year old boy he met on line.

We tried to find out how these two met. The Greece Police Chief said it happened recently. Chief Todd Baxter and the district attorney would only say it was a social media site and it was not Facebook.

Officer Ross has been a cop for 7 years. Last year -- he helped bring back the K9 unit to the Greece Police Department. We asked the chief if Officer Ross has ever been in trouble before.

"Not that I know of prior to my administration and certainly not during my administration. I've had absolutely no problems with him," Chief Baxter said.

But now Officer Ross is suspended with pay -- accused of giving alcohol to a minor. It came to the chief's attention last month. He met with the district attorney who suggested they let the sheriff's office investigate.
Ross turned himself into the Sheriff's Office Friday.

"We in the community need to build trust in our police officers to protect our community," DA Sandra Doorley said. "But a police officer needs to be treated as any other member of our community. If they are alleged to have violated the law, we need to look at that as we would any other citizen."

The charges against Ross are misdemeanors. Doorley says the system allows people in Ross' situation to avoid jail and keep their record clean if convicted.

"There is a provision in the law which allows the individual charged with the crime to attend an awareness program and if there is successful completion of that program they're entitled to a reduction of the charge or an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal," Doorley said.

In laymen's terms that means if a person stays out of trouble for six months then the charges are officially dismissed.

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