Judge denies request for early release by former Gun Trace Task Force member dying of cancer
BALTIMORE -- A former Baltimore police detective who was part of the notorious Gun Trace Task Force says he has terminal cancer and less than two years to live.
A judge rejected his request to let him move home with his family for his final days.
WJZ has extensively covered the scandal surrounding the rogue band of officers from the beginning.
Detective Daniel Hersl was one of only two Gun Trace Task Force officers to fight the charges that he committed violent robberies against citizens and filed fraudulent overtime reports.
He was convicted and is serving an 18-year sentence.
Now, Hersl has what his doctors at the U.S. Medical Center in Springfield, Missouri say is incurable prostate cancer that has spread to his lymph nodes, liver and lungs. Those doctors estimate that he has just 18 months to live.
"When I lay in bed at night, my body trembles so violently and my heart races so fast that I wonder if I will even awake in the morning. ...I'm scared," the former detective wrote his lawyer. "I hope I can at least make the trip home to spend time with my son and family before my days are done."
In another message, Hersl wrote, "I can feel my body declining every day. I'm so tired and now I can sense the cancer up in my neck/throat lymph nodes starting to attack and it's painful and bothersome to swallow. I'm also spitting up a lot of phlegm."
He asked that he be allowed to spend his final days in Maryland with his 16-year-old son—but the judge denied his request, citing the violent nature of his crimes in perhaps the biggest scandal ever to hit the Baltimore police department.
"The defendant and others within the criminal organization used their legally authorized police powers to commit violent robberies against Baltimore City residents," Judge George Russell III wrote in his opinion denying early release. "The defendant and his co-conspirators not only irreparably damaged the victims of their criminal acts but the reputation of the Baltimore City police department."
Hersl has asserted he will be at a "very low risk of reoffending" due to his medical condition, but that wasn't enough to sway Russell.
"A message certainly needs to be sent that if you commit criminal conduct or otherwise engage in a racketeering conspiracy you will be held accountable and punished," Russell said.
WJZ was the first news organization to report on the letters Hersl wrote from prison, asserting his innocence. He has never expressed remorse.
Now, based on the denial of his motion, he will be spending his final days far from home under the care of the federal Bureau of Prisons.
Russell said he believes the prison system is equipped to provide that end-of-life care even though Hersl's lawyer expressed doubts.
The government opposed Hersl's early release.
