Anthony Abbate, the Chicago 12-year veteran cop accused of beating a female bartender at Chicago’s Short Stop Inn and whose acts were caught in a video that caused worldwide rage has managed to get himself in even more trouble and is now facing 14 new felony charges.

A Chicago police officer accused in a videotaped beating of a female bartender has been charged with trying to intimidate witnesses by threatening to plant drugs on bar employees and arrest customers for drunken driving, prosecutors said Friday.

The indictment alleges that a woman acting as an intermediary for Abbate threatened that Abbate or other police officers would plant illegal drugs on bar employees or customers and arrest them if the videotape was turned over to anyone who could use it to make a case against Abbate. The woman also allegedly said customers would be arrested for drunken driving, the indictment said.

As if Abbate’s alleged use of a go-between was not bad enough, it would appear that someone is trying to drag other Chicago cops into the cover up. Things have gotten so bad that Chicago Police Superintendent Phil Cline facing the Abbate scandal and another alleged video taped beating of businessmen by other Chicago cops has decided it is a lost cause and has retired to greener and less embarrassing pastures.

Read it at More Charges Vs. Cop In Videotaped Beating and consider the possibility that Anthony Abbate just might be a one-man crime wave…