(SBT24/7News) William Speybroeck said he was supporting himself and his family in a comfortable lifestyle with profits from selling stolen goods over eBay.

And his sources for the stolen merchandise, he said, were three men who at the time were local police officers.

The three officers — Andrew Taghon, Ryan Huston and Jamie Buford — have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Hammond. The indictments became public Monday.

A fourth man, Daniel Alvarez, who is not a police officer, also was indicted.

David Capp, acting U.S. attorney for northern Indiana, declined Tuesday to confirm or deny any of Speybroeck’s allegations.

Speybroeck talked about the case during an interview in July in the Elkhart County Jail before being transferred to the Putnamville Correctional Facility. A jury convicted him in November of two felony charges — fraud on a financial institution and identity deception — charges unrelated to his alleged activities with the officers. He also has prior felony convictions.

Judge James Rieckhoff sentenced Speybroeck to 10 years in prison, to be followed by four years on probation. The case is under appeal.

Speybroeck said he knew Taghon and Huston because they grew up in the same German Township neighborhood. The two officers are five years older than Speybroeck, who is 28. He did not know Buford very well, he said.

Speybroeck said he worked as a fence for the officers for 2½ years before the scheme started to unravel. The indictment lists a time period of only about nine months, from July 2004 to March 2005.

Taghon and Huston at the beginning were working together as warrant officers for the county, although Taghon later switched to a road patrol job, according to Sheriff Frank Canarecci.

Buford held a variety of positions with the city police department, including a stint with the county’s Metro Homicide Unit and a stint with the Metro Special Operations Section. MSOS is a countywide unit that, among other duties, investigates drug cases.

Outlining the scheme

According to Speybroeck, the scheme worked in a couple of different ways. One way was to have an officer stop a person known to be wanted on a warrant. The officer would take drugs, weapons and other items from the wanted person’s vehicle, he said, then would let the wanted person go.

Meanwhile, during the stop, the officer would ask whether anyone was home at the suspect’s residence. If the answer was “no,’’ Speybroeck said, the officer would radio the information to another participant, who would break into the house to steal things.

The federal indictment does not mention that scheme. It says the officers were breaking into house trailers owned by a man who was in prison.

Speybroeck said in July that most of the items would be delivered to him, and he would sell them on eBay.

The original deal, he said, was for the cops to split the take 50/50 with him. Then, he said, the officers started bickering with each other over the proceeds. He said they started asking him for a larger share of the money and eventually wanted to give Speybroeck nothing.

When the deal started to become knotty, Speybroeck said, he started tape-recording all of his conversations with the officers. He said he eventually turned the tapes over to the FBI. Capp would not comment on that.

Speybroeck said he refused to become involved in drug trafficking, so the officers were using others to help in the drug trade.

Also, he noted, guns could not be sold over eBay, so the officers disposed of them through other means. The federal indictments accuse Taghon and Alvarez of being involved in the gun sales.

‘It’s a long time coming’

In fact, Speybroeck said, the guns used to shoot South Bend police Cpl. Rick Ruszkowski three years ago had been stolen, then fenced, by an officer.

Speybroeck said he testified before the grand jury in Hammond about a year ago. Capp would not confirm that, either, nor would he say whether Speybroeck was one of the individuals identified in the indictment as “Persons 1, 2, 3 and 4.’’ Speybroeck, reached by telephone Tuesday afternoon, also would not say whether he was one of the “persons” mentioned.

When their relationship soured, Speybroeck said in July, the officers became increasingly annoyed with him. One of the officers threatened him by putting a gun to his head, he said. Another officer allegedly tried to frame him by threatening to shoot a hole in his own squad car, then blame Speybroeck for the shooting.

“Who would believe me?” Speybroeck asked, noting that he is a convicted felon.

On Tuesday, Speybroeck said he was aware of the indictments and seemed relieved.

“Two years,’’ he said, referring to the length of the investigation. “It’s a long time coming.”

Speybroeck, a nephew of former county sheriff Joseph Speybroeck, declined to elaborate more on the record, saying, “There’s nothing positive that can come out of this for me.”