Former Brookside police chief convicted of accessing computer records about his criminal case

Published 1:35 pm Thursday, October 9, 2014

A former chief of the Brookside Police Department has been convicted on several charges.

Dennis Ray McCoy was convicted on Sept. 12 in Jefferson Circuit Court for using his office for personal gain, obtaining criminal offender record information under false pretenses, and computer tampering.

McCoy, 53 and a Dora resident, was arrested after being fired as police chief in January 2013. He then went to work as a part-time officer for the Warrior Police Department, and it was there that he committed other crimes that were related to the original charges.

According to a statement by the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency — the new umbrella agency that includes the Alabama Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Public Safety and 10 other law-enforcement departments — McCoy was convicted on charges that he improperly used the Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center computer system to access information about his case, and that of co-defendant Lisa Aldridge. Ironically, he did so on the very day that his case was going before a grand jury in Birmingham for the original charges.

McCoy was also convicted of accessing confidential information about a prosecution witness.

An ALEA spokeswoman said that this case marked the first time that someone had been convicted under the Alabama Digital Crimes Act, which took effect in 2012.

McCoy was originally charged with three counts of ethics violations, one count of unlawful breaking and entering a vehicle, two counts of theft and one count of unauthorized use of a vehicle. He was acquitted of all of those counts except the unauthorized-use charge, which involved use of a Brookside patrol car after his dismissal, according to Assistant District Attorney Patrick Lamb.

The personal-gain count stems from charges that McCoy had improper control over uniforms and money held for their purchase.

The computer tampering and unauthorized use charges are class B felonies, which carry prison sentences between two and 20 years. The criminal records charge carries a sentence of up to five years, and the personal gain charge is a misdemeanor with a possible sentence of one year. McCoy could also be fined up to $10,000 on each of the felony charges.

Sentencing will be held on Nov. 21 before Circuit Judge Tommy Nail.

Aldridge faces trial on three related charges in February.