Former Rankin police Chief Darryll Briston already spent three years in prison on federal theft charges.

He was convicted again in state court of theft by deception and official oppression.

But on Wednesday, the Allegheny County district attorney's office failed to win a conviction accusing Mr. Briston of attempting to eat a piece of evidence.

The official charges were criminal attempt to destroy evidence, resisting arrest, obstructing the administration of law, simple and aggravated assault.

Mr. Briston, 46, of North Braddock, was found guilty, though, of disorderly conduct, because Judge Randal B. Todd ruled that the former police chief should have known better than to use profanity during a public proceeding.

He was sentenced to six months of probation.

The charges in this case stem from an incident in 2003 in which Mr. Briston was accused of taking $1,300 from a local bar owner. He claimed that the man broke the windshield of his new police car and the check was to pay for it. However, state police who investigated the matter said there was no damage to the car, and that the chief had instead shaken down the bar owner.

A week before his preliminary hearing on March 24, 2005, Mr. Briston provided the prosecutor a copy of a receipt he claimed came from a repair shop related to the broken windshield. Then at the preliminary hearing, the prosecutor and the state trooper saw that Mr. Briston had the original receipt on the table in front of him. They asked him for it, but he and his attorney refused to hand it over.

Cpl. John Tamewitz testified that he and the assistant district attorney decided they should seize the receipt.

"At one point, I went to grab the receipt off the pile in front of Mr. Briston. He then grabbed it and held it in his right hand," the trooper testified.

Mr. Briston then switched it to his left hand and started to crumple it up.

"As soon as he did that, I grabbed him and took him to the ground. As we were going down to the ground, Mr. Briston stuffed the receipt into his mouth," Cpl. Tamewitz said. "We believed he was going to swallow the receipt."

The two men scuffled, but Mr. Briston expelled the paper. He was later placed under arrest. When that happened, the trooper testified, Mr. Briston shouted profanities at him.

Judge Todd said that because the receipt was never placed into evidence, the commonwealth couldn't prove its case.

Mr. Briston has a civil suit pending against Allegheny County for holding him in the jail for 20 days longer than his federal sentence required. He claims that he was held the additional time so that the district attorney's office could pressure him into pleading guilty on the current case.

Originally, he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct but later withdrew his plea.

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