In a highly unusual post-conviction letter sent to a federal prosecutor, Durham insisted he never intended to leak information to Coles, whom he did not know.
"There can't be any justice in trying and convicting an innocent man who's spent his entire life upholding and obeying the laws," Durham wrote.
The letter, attached to a federal sentencing memorandum filed this month, is the latest twist in a bizarre and highly personal case that has cost Durham his career.
He was fired shortly after his indictment and has been on house arrest since his conviction.
Friends and advocates describe Durham as a highly regarded police officer who, in their worst-case scenario, used bad judgment on the day of the raid.
But federal prosecutors and several law enforcement agents working with him that morning say Durham was a cop gone bad who put dozens of fellow officers at risk.
"It's uncharacteristic as well as unimaginable to think I would have in any [way] compromised a criminal investigation of any sort," Durham wrote in a letter sent in November to Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Lloret, one of the prosecutors in the Alton Coles case.
After praising Lloret, who has built a career prosecuting major drug dealers and their associates, Durham wrote that "growing up in the inner city and experiencing the carnage caused by [the] influx of drugs, all I ever wanted to do was rid the city of drugs and drug dealers."
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Bresnick said Durham's words rang hollow, showed his failure to accept responsibility, and underscored his lack of remorse.
In a sentencing memo, Bresnick, who prosecuted Durham in the obstruction of justice case, said the ex-cop "continues to howl at the wind."
