Repair shop owner Alex Moreno said he was approached in 2008 by a Baltimore police officer with an idea to help boost sales at his fledgling Rosedale business: In exchange for a cut, officers would funnel cars to the shop.
Soon, Majestic Auto Repair was getting customers almost exclusively from city police — he testified Tuesday in federal court that more than 60 officers would ultimately get in on the scheme, receiving $300 for each referral. Business grew so fast that he had to expand to new lots to store all the cars; the backlog was so deep that they paid for rental cars to keep customers from becoming frustrated by the wait.
"The officers are the first ones to go to the [accident] scenes, and instead of the car going to the city [yard] or other shops, they'd come to our shop," Moreno testified.