The crime spree began in July 2020 when Sims responded to the scene of a dispute between a woman and the 52-year-old victim he robbed, prosecutors said in a news release announcing the plea deal last month. Sims allegedly saw a gun in the victim’s car and searched the car, seizing $3,850 in cash he found.

Prosecutors outlined six other robberies, which happened after either Sims or Cole executed a traffic stop. The officers stole a total of $14,781 and two firearms from six victims. One man was on his way to a funeral home to pay for his mother’s services when he was robbed.

Sims pleaded guilty to charges including four counts of robbery and one count of theft in office, court records show. Cole was sentenced Monday to 30 months in prison.

During his sentencing on Thursday, Sims was hit with 12 months in prison at the Lorain Correctional Facility for each of the five counts. All but two of the counts were ordered to run concurrently, meaning Sims will spend two years in prison.

Both men were each fined $40,000, or $10,000 for each of four of the victims, court records show. The men were jointly ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution to victim Martez Brown.

Sims was additionally ordered to pay $2,000 to victim Jonathan Whitlow — whom he robbed twice — as well as $3,850 to victim Steven Nagy.

“Cuyahoga sheriff is ordered to keep defendant, a former police officer, safe in custody and segregate him from other prisoners whether it be in isolation or what is classified as a safe range, until he is transferred to ODRC custody,” Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Timothy McGinty ruled.

“[The sheriff’s office] is further ordered when it delivers this defendant to prison to deliver this court’s order to ODRC and control that this defendant, Willie Sims, is to be imprisoned for his sentence in an environment that protects a former police officer felon.”

Whitlow told McGinty on Thursday that he did not want Sims to go to prison because he wanted the former officer to pay him back his money, Cleveland.com reported.

“How is he going to pay me making 3 cents an hour?” Whitlow asked.

McGinty told Whitlow that his fears he would not see his money were warranted. The officers have forfeited their state police officer licenses and their arrests are connected to a wider investigation into corruption on the police force.

“The one person that the public should be able to have confidence in … would be your emergency services, your police officers, your firefighters, your EMTs,” said another judge, Michael Russo, according to NBC News.

“You’ve shaken the confidence of the public in the criminal justice system and the trust they put in police officers.”