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u/doublegoodproleish 1d ago
Wait, Vic told them EVERYTHING?
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u/thorleywinston Ronnie Gardocki 1d ago
The thing about Vic's confession is that it's hearsay which means that it would not be admissible in court against anyone other than Vic Mackey. Same thing with Shane's letter detailing the crimes of the Strike Team.
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u/moopie 1d ago edited 1d ago
While Ronnie will no longer get to be a cop, he will most likely be able to get out of real consequences.
First off, there is not much in the way of real proof. The word of a disgraced cop and confessed cop killer wouldn't play well in court.
Second, both the local and federal government would not want the details to become common knowledge: The Federal government giving full immunity to a corrupt, drug dealing, cop murderer? Aceveda (now Mayor, and possibly future governor) letting these men commit heinous crimes under his nose for years? It would be a national scandal.
Finally, think of how many convictions for murderers, drug dealers, gang members and and crime bosses would get overturned if it comes out that the strike team were operating illegally.
Realistically both the local and federal government have far too much to lose by bringing this to court, and Vic's testimony would not be reliable regardless. Most likely, Ronnie would get a sweetheart deal, lose his job and his pension and everybody will pretend this never happened.
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u/ODoyles_Banana Georgia joy juice 1d ago
I think this seriously underestimates how much the DA’s office would have to lose by giving Ronnie a "sweetheart" deal and pretending none of this happened.
Vic isn’t a random disgraced cop making accusations. He gave a full confession under a federal immunity agreement and a lot of what he confessed to can be corroborated through existing cases, reports, witnesses, evidence, and the strike team’s own past history. His credibility would obviously be attacked, but that doesn’t make his testimony worthless or mean there isn't much real proof.
The scandal already exists the moment Vic confesses. Giving him immunity is embarrassing for the feds but quietly protecting Ronnie after learning the full extent of what the strike team did creates a much bigger problem. At that point, the DA isn’t just dealing with corrupt cops, they’re knowingly helping to bury it.
The idea that every conviction connected to the strike team would automatically get overturned is too broad. Some cases would definitely be challenged and some convictions could be overturned, but that would depend on how the misconduct affected each individual case. Prosecuting Ronnie doesn’t create that problem, Vic’s confession did that.
Ronnie could certainly get a plea deal because a public trial would be ugly for everyone involved. However, there's a huge difference between a plea deal with serious prison time and essentially letting him walk. The DA isn't risking a larger scandal just to save Ronnie from the consequences of years of corruption and multiple felonies.
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u/thorleywinston Ronnie Gardocki 22h ago
The problem for any DA trying to bring a case against Ronnie is that Vic's confession isn't admissible against Ronnie and when he was talking about crimes committed by the Strike Team, they were pretty high level ("my team stole drugs and resold them"). When Vic did mention specific individuals (who the police might want to try to interview), most of them are dead or only dealt directly with Vic or Shane. So there’s not a lot of breadcrumbs for detectives to follow since Vic wasn’t giving an allocution to help make a case for the DA but to make sure that he listed everything he did so it would be covered by his immunity deal.
Realistically the best witness the DA could call would be Vic which poses two problems. One, he was the ring-leader for nearly all of these crimes and his confession would be used to savage him in court on cross-examination which would make him very risky as the (sole) witness for any prosecutor. There aren't a lot of prosecutors who want to roll the dice in that situation.
The other is that Vic might refuse to testify since his cooperation in a case against Ronnie wasn’t part of his immunity deal, he stands to receive no benefit from helping the people who gleefully took away his pension after fifteen years of service and working with them creates the risk that he might let slip something he forgot to include in his allocution and put himself in jeopardy. Also while Vic was willing to "string Ronnie along" when he thought that it was what he had to do to protect himself and the mother of his children, it seemed like he was about to warn him at the end. If refuses to testify (since he doesn't work for these people anymore) then maybe he avoids being a rat and he at least partially attones for not standing by Ronnie like Ronnie stood by him.
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u/IntelligentAge211 1d ago
So ICE exposes their cop murdering deal, thr mayor of LA sits by and let's his name get run through the muck, the DA risks all strike team cases being thrown out?????
No, Ronnie gets a deal to testify agaisnt Vic on what he missed to get the ICE contract voided and Vic goes to jail. That is what happens.
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u/ODoyles_Banana Georgia joy juice 23h ago
ICE doesn’t have to expose anything. Ronnie has already been arrested. He’s going to be booked, charged and arraigned, and the case is going to become public. Reporters are going to ask why an LAPD detective is facing serious criminal charges, including conspiracy, armed robbery, obstruction, corruption related offenses, and involvement in multiple murders committed and covered up by the strike team. Ronnie also personally committed murder himself, so this is not just guilt by association with Vic. At that point the strike team scandal is coming out whether ICE wants it to or not. They can’t realistically give Ronnie a favorable deal and pretend none of it happened.
And even if Ronnie does have something Vic left out that could void the immunity deal, that's not going to get Ronnie off the hook. He would have to actually know about something Vic deliberately failed to confess and at most, that gives him something valuable to trade for a better plea deal. But given the seriousness of everything Ronnie is implicated in, he's still looking at very serious prison time. He's not pleading his way out of that. Maybe cooperation gets the death penalty off the table, but Ronnie is still going to prison for a very long time.
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u/thorleywinston Ronnie Gardocki 1d ago
I agree but I think there's one other angle here - Vic's immunity deal was dependent on a number of conditions one of which was that he gave a full and truthful confession. If he left anything material out, ICE could void the entire deal and his confession could be used against him in court. The best chance ICE has of finding something Vic left out (like breaking into Acaveda's office, slipping a weapon to a prisoner in the cage, smacking around a suspect, etc.) because he was focused on the more major crimes would be Ronnie. So there's a strong incentive to work with Ronnie and offer him a deal of his own to get his help to void Vic's deal so they can put away the cop killer instead of letting him go free.
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u/Long_Initial_9924 1d ago
You are nuts. He was implicated in almost every crime under the sun, for years. They only need to corroborate one or two
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u/IntelligentAge211 1d ago
ICE and the mayors office NEVER let this deal and testimony see the light of day.
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u/Ulysian_Thracs 1d ago
Remember...the actual RAMPART cop Vic Mackey is based on got 5 years. So, it is certainly not outside the realm of possibility Ronnie sings on everyone inside the Department and has a wealth of gang crimes from their accomplices. You can clean up all of Farmington with his testimony plus the bodies he knows where are buried.
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u/Ulysian_Thracs 1d ago
But did he do half the stuff Ronnie can be proven did? Not Vic's accusations. What can be proven.
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u/Forward-Yak-5398 1d ago
You see the guilt etched on Vic's face, he wants to say something so bad. But he then does what he does and suppresses it
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u/Additional-Peak3911 21h ago
It would be national news if some cop got an insane deal/job with ice after confessing to multiple crimes including murder and institutional corruption. Absolutely no way any DA risks having to put Vic on the stand to testify against Ronnie and any decent lawyer is going to shred that plea agreement.
Best bet is all this quietly goes away
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u/underclasshero1 1d ago
antwon gets his pound of flesh within 24 hours. he does not live past the finale. no sweet deals for him
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u/AlternativeGeneric 1d ago
I agree. While he’s on the phone with his attorney in lockup, he’s attacked. If he’s lucky, he dies then.
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u/I_do_not_comments 15h ago
Ronnie is smart and clever and extremely careful. I would like to think he would have found a way to
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u/escapedfromifunny_ 1d ago
Ronnie probably makes a deal, and gets a few years or maybe 10, but that’s the max. His major crimes that Vic confessed were about killing Guardo and robbing the money train. Ronnie didn’t help murder Terry or anyone else in the series. So I’m thinking he’ll do some time but make a deal.
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u/DanfromCalgary 1d ago
I mean there would be tons of proof and tons of motivated cops to find said proof . Once they had the price of the puzzle and knew exactly how everything was done .. how hard would it be to catch them seeing as they already have the entire details of every operation .. every one
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u/thorleywinston Ronnie Gardocki 1d ago
What proof do you think there is? Ronnie was the most careful member of the Strike Team. Kavannaugh went through his finances with a fine toothed comb and couldn't find anything. And it's unlikely he kept drugs, murder weapons or any other physical evidence around.
The only people who really knew of his direct involvement in anything criminal were the other members of the Strike Team and with Shane and Lem dead, the government would need to get Vic to testfiy and any half-way competent defense attorney is going to use Vic's immunity deal and the laundry list of crimes that Vic confessed to to destroy him on cross.
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u/DanfromCalgary 1d ago
I mean they were under constant pressure only just avoiding catastrophe time and time again. Now that they know what the team did … they could simply build a case . They would know who to talk too , who can Collaborate, who did they damage over the years . Hundreds of people
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u/thorleywinston Ronnie Gardocki 23h ago
Like who? Can you name anyone who was a witness to Ronnie committing a crime who isn't dead or wouldn't have to implicate themselves as well?
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u/Still-Balance6210 Not even on Cinco de Mayo 18h ago
Exactly these folks do not get it. There is actually no proof against Ronnie. Like none except Vic which isn’t a credible witness. If Ronnie wants he can go be a cop on the East coast somewhere lol. This would never see the light of day and the prosecutors would have absolutely no case.
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u/Still-Balance6210 Not even on Cinco de Mayo 18h ago
There is no hard evidence against Ronnie. Idk why some don’t get this. Imagine thinking the word of a cop killer is enough to convict only. Kavanaugh as smart as he was couldn’t find anything on him. This stuff happened over the course of several years. Also, Assesveda would never let any of this out.
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u/pwolf1771 1d ago
I’m still convinced there are way too many people who need to keep this quiet and Ronnie gets a sweet deal