By Janice Gregorson

Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN 

Before jurors began six hours of deliberation on Thursday in the Curt Rude case, attorneys from both side pressed their arguments for conviction and acquittal.

The whole thing started exactly two years ago today. It was Nov. 6, 2007, when Rude, then a captain in the Austin Police Department, went into the evidence room and walked out with two bottles of OxyContin from what is described as the "burn barrel," where evidence from closed cases is put to be destroyed.

Rude admitted he took the drugs from the evidence room but said his intent was to research the drug, which had killed his longtime friend, Mark Johnson, a former KAAL-TV news reporter. Johnson died of an overdose seven months earlier. Before that, however, Johnson had been charged with selling drugs. The prescription bottles were Johnson's.

Rude said that as a captain, he had access to the evidence room and regularly retrieved items from the burn barrel for instructional purposes.

Another officer saw Rude with the pill bottles, and that triggered an investigation by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and, eventually, criminal charges. The case was prosecuted by an Olmsted County attorney to avoid any conflict of interest. The trial was held in Rochester on a change of venue.

Several friends and relatives were on hand during the trial to support Rude.

Chief in 'tough spot'

In closing arguments, prosecutor Ross Leuning told jurors that Austin Police Chief Paul Philipp was in a tough spot.

"This (Rude) was his best friend. He was grooming him to be chief. Now he made a major blunder (in removing the OxyContin)." But, Leuning said, "the chief did what you hope every police officer would do. He said this was serious."

Leuning said Rude's actions "called into question the integrity of the evidence room and the quality of the Austin Police Department as a whole." He said the chief did the proper thing in asking the BCA to investigate.

Both attorneys stressed that the case was not about police department procedures and practices; it was about whether Rude violated state law.

Rude's attorey, Peter Wold, told jurors that the department has no policy on taking items from the evidence room burn barrel. He called it garbage ready to be destroyed.

Life as a cop

As he concluded, Wold told jurors Rude was a dedicated cop devoted to his department and the people of Austin.

"He was most often the face of the Austin Police Department. It was his job, his responsibility to inform, to educate, to sound the alarm in the community. He did it day in and day out."

Wold said cops don't have switches they can turn off. Being a cop is their life.

"That is what we expect. We expect cops to be cops on or off duty, to always react, to help victims," he said.

Wold told jurors that to suggest Rude was not acting in his capacity as a cop the day he removed the OxyContin from the burn barrel is just not right.

"He has earned the benefit of doubt," Wold said.

All Rude did, Wold said, was move the pill bottles from the garbage barrel to a locked drawer in his locked office in the police department.

"It's not always easy to be a cop. The pay is modest, the hours long. There is danger, they are disrespected, even despised," Wold said.

Wold said Rude was thinking and acting as the "good cop he always was."

Office politics

In this case, Wold said, there were office politics.

In the summer of 2007, the relationship between Rude and Philipp was strained by Rude's running for a seat on the Austin School Board.

Jurors never got to hear about a dispute between Rude and then Superintendent Candace Raskin on election night. She ended up filing a complaint with the police department stemming from what was called a confrontational verbal exchange with Rude, and Rude ended up being reprimanded by the chief for behavior "unbecoming to yourself and the police force."

Wold told jurors that it comes down to whether Rude was a cop the day he took the OxyContin "or an interloper."

"He did not stick them in his pocket or take them home. He didn't pop one (of the pills) in his mouth," Wold said. "He lawfully possessed the drugs.

"Curt Rude is not a thief. He is not a drug convict. He is not a felon. He is guilty of none of those three charges."

Leuning reminded jurors that police officers are not above the law and that Rude's actions harmed the police department's reputation and credibility.

He agreed that Rude served "honorably," until he took OxyContin from the drug evidence room.

"He deserves to be treated the same as anyone else," Leuning said.

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