- History: Philly Police - Corruption -
ofr...@hotmail.com
>
> 960120, Philadelphia, PA, Reuters. Police Officer Louis Maiier
> Date: Sun Jan 21, 1996 12:38 am CST
> From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
> EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
> MBX: bwit...@igc.apc.org
>
> TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
> Subject: Philly Cop Sentenced
>
> Posted by Bob Witanek 1/20/96
>
> Officer Gets 5 Years
>
> PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 19 (Reuters) - One of six police officers who
> pleaded guilty in a corruption investigation was sentenced today
> to 5 years in prison, an unusually long term that the judge said
> was intended to serve as a deterrent. "Criminal conduct such as
> you will not be tolerated and will be dealt with severely," Judge
> Harvey Bartle of Federal District Court said sentencing the
> officer, Louis Maiier. He had pleaded guilty to conspiracy in
> violating the civil rights of defendants by framing them on drug
> charges. Federal guidelines call for a sentence of 24 to 30
> months. 5 other officers pleaded guilty to similar charges and are
> awaiting sentencing. As a result of the inquiry, 60 criminal cases
> have been dismissed or overturned.
> ==========
> COMMENT: While the NYT reported that the sentence was stiff, I have
> to chuckle. These cops knowingly fabricated evidence that could
> have sent suspects away for decades. A fitting sentence for such
> criminal acts committed by cops would be, IMHO, at least 2 years
> for every one year sentencing potential of the framing victim.
>
> Posted in pol-...@igc.apc.org
> ====================================================================
> ====================================================================
> 960126, Philadelphia, PA, Philadelphia Inquirer. Former
> Date: Sat Jan 27, 1996 12:31 pm CST
> From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
> EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
> MBX: bwit...@igc.apc.org
>
> TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
> Subject: Philly's Dirty Thirty-9th - Saga Continues
>
> From: Bob Witanek
> Subject: Philly's Dirty Thirty-9th - Saga Continues
>
> Posted dad...@chesco.com Fri Jan 26 22:33:46 1996
> From: Ronnie Dadone
> Subject: more on the Dirty Thirty-9th
>
> Date: Sat, 27 Jan 96 02:04:36 -0800
> From: Ronnie Dadone
> To: dad...@chesco.com
> Subject: Philadelphia Inquirer: City & Region
>
> http://www.phillynews.com/inq/city/COPS26.htm
> >
> > [The Philadelphia Inquirer] City & Region
> >
> > Friday, January 26, 1996
> >
> > 5 officers' sentencing off again
> > The reason for this 3d postponement: The probe may touch even more
> > 39th District officers.
> >
> > By Joseph A. Slobodzian
> > INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
> >
> > The sentencing of five former Philadelphia police officers in the
> > 39th District corruption probe has been postponed a third time, and
> > a defense lawyer yesterday said the reason was that the
> > investigation was expanding.
> >
> > Assistant U.S. Attorney William B. Carr Jr. confirmed that U.S.
> > District Judge Robert S. Gawthrop 3d had postponed Monday's
> > sentencing of former officers Thomas DeGovanni, Thomas Ryan and
> > James Ryan.
> >
> > Attorneys for the two other former officers, John Baird and Steven
> > Brown, said they, too, expect the judge to postpone their clients'
> > sentencing, which is set for Tuesday.
> >
> > All five officers pleaded guilty to framing drug defendants and
> > lying on police reports in a series of cases between 1988 and 1991.
> >
> > Assistant U.S. Attorney Joel Goldstein, who is prosecuting the case
> > with Carr, said he could not comment on the reason for the
> > postponement.
> >
> > A. Charles Peruto Jr., the attorney for Brown, said the postponement
> > was necessary because James Ryan's continuing cooperation had caused
> > prosecutors to begin looking at other police officers.
> >
> > ``My client helped lead them to Ryan, and James then turned them
> > onto something big,'' Peruto said. ``And Brown is now entitled to
> > some benefit for that.''
> >
> > Other than ``more officers,'' Peruto declined to say into what area
> > the probe was expanding.
> >
> > Lawyers for James Ryan and Thomas Ryan, who are not related, could
> > be reached for comment, but Peruto's remarks were echoed in the
> > statements of two other defense attorneys.
> >
> > ``There is still ongoing cooperation that has not borne fruit, as
> > they say,'' said Elizabeth K. Ainslie, the attorney for Baird, whom
> > prosecutors have called the mastermind of the group of corrupt
> > officers who preyed on suspected drug dealers in the North
> > Philadelphia district.
> >
> > The officers arrested or searched more than 40 individuals between
> > 1988 and 1991, stealing more than $100,000 in cash and property.
> >
> > Baird was the first target of the federal probe, and it was his
> > reluctant decision to become an informant that led to last
> > February's indictment of the five officers.
> >
> > The fluid nature of the continuing investigation was further
> > suggested by a memo filed Monday by Gerald Stein, attorney for
> > DeGovanni. Stein also said DeGovanni's cooperation had helped lead
> > prosecutors to James Ryan, and that it would be unfair for the judge
> > to sentence the former police sergeant without knowing the results
> > of Ryan's -- and, by extension, DeGovanni's -- cooperation.
> >
> > All three defense attorneys contacted said their requests for
> > postponement had nothing to do with the five-year prison term meted
> > out last Friday by U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle 3d to former
> > 39th District officer Louis J. Maier 3d.
> >
> > Sources, however, said at least some of the five were shocked by the
> > severity of that sentence. Maier was charged separately after the
> > original five were indicted last year.
> >
> > Bartle's sentence was twice as long as that recommended for Maier
> > under federal sentencing guidelines. One reason was that federal
> > prosecutors said the decorated veteran officer had breached his
> > agreement to cooperate fully in the ongoing corruption probe.
> >
> > Moreover, Maier's sentence came despite Assistant U.S. Attorney
> > Carr's comments that Maier was among the least culpable of the six
> > officers charged thus far.
> >
> > Yesterday Maier's attorney, L. Felipe Restrepo, appealed the
> > sentence to the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
>
> ======================================================================
> ======================================================================
ofr...@hotmail.com
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bwit...@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Philly Dirty Thirty-9th. - More Releases
Posted: Ronnie Dadone
http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/96/Mar/16/front_page/COPS16.htm
>
> [The Philadelphia Inquirer] Page
One >
> Saturday, March 16,
1996 >
> More falsely convicted to be released
> In the 39th District mess, the tainted cases have reached 110.
>
> [Image] By Mark Fazlollah
> INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
>
> Now it's 110, and counting.
>
> The biggest, most expensive police scandal in Philadelphia
history > has reached a new benchmark for notoriety. Eleven more
> drug-conviction cases are about to be overturned, bringing the
total > to 110 as the massive review of damage done by corrupt cops
> continues.
> The church-going grandmother who was framed and sent to prison
for > three years, the restaurant manager who was put away for two
years, > and the 18-year-old nursing student who was snatched from
her > relatives' house by police and falsely arrested.
>
> These were some of the 110.
> The 11 new cases include two defendants who are on probation for
> their 39th District drug convictions. Another has finished his
> two-year prison term and is on parole.
>
> William Davol, a spokesman for District Attorney Lynne Abraham,
said > yesterday the 11 convictions would be overturned as soon as
a judge > approved the prosecutors' motions for reversing the
cases. >
> When five former 39th District officers were indicted on Feb. 28,
> 1995, on federal corruption charges, Abraham said that any case
that > was tainted by their involvement would be reversed.
>
> All five have pleaded guilty, as has one other 39th District
officer > indicted later in the year.
>
> A year into the review of the officers' arrests, defense
attorneys > continue to send Abraham stacks of cases for
reconsideration. In > all, the six corrupt 39th District officers
made about 1,400 arrests > between 1988 and 1995.
>
> Among the cases overturned so far is the drug conviction of Betty
> Patterson, the grandmother who was arrested in July 1989. Former
> 39th District Officers Thomas Ryan, John Baird and Steven Brown
told > prosecutors that she was framed.
>
> Baird, now in a federal prison, said the only reason Patterson
was > arrested was to gather evidence against her three sons for
a murder > case that the District Attorney's Office later lost.
>
> Baird said he believed Ryan or Brown planted the drugs that were
> used to send Patterson to prison for three years.
>
> And the 110 cases includes Andre Bonaparte, who walked out of
jail > Aug. 8 after his conviction was reversed. And George
Porchea, a > restaurant manager who was released from prison July
24.
>
> And there was Denise Patterson (not related to Betty Patterson),
who > was arrested in November 1988 by Baird. She was then an 18-
year-old > nursing student who just happened to be at her
relatives' house > caring for her sick mother when the police burst
in and decided that > she was a drug dealer.
>
> The case review has become a legal nightmare for the city. As
cases > are reversed because of corrupt officers, lawsuits pile up.
> Betty Patterson has sued for $20 million. Denise Patterson and
> Bonaparte have also sued, and Porchea has told the city he is
ready > to sue.
>
> Public Defender Bradley S. Bridge said he was disappointed by the
> pace of the dismissals.
>
> Though Bridge's office and prosecutors have agreed on dropping
the > 11 cases -- and 43 other convictions that the District
Attorney's > Office last month said should be overturned -- it is
unclear when > they can be officially reversed.
>
> Last year, Common Pleas Court Judge Legrome D. Davis was assigned
to > handle all 39th District cases. He handled most of the 56 >
convictions that have been overturned.
>
> Recently, Davis moved off the 39th District beat because of >
scheduling changes. Another judge was supposed to be assigned to
the > cases.
>
> That has not happened yet, though prosecutors and defense
attorneys > said the glitch probably would be resolved quickly.
Court officials > did not respond to requests for comment
yesterday.
>
> Bridge said none of the 11 defendants, nor anyone from the 43
other > cases, is currently in jail because of 39th District
arrests. But he > said the courts should quickly overturn the
convictions.
>
> ``Everyone is in agreement about getting this done,'' Bridge
said. > ``We just can't find anyone to do it.''
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From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
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TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Dirty 39th. - 60 More Tossed Convictions
Posted: Ronnie Dadone
http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/96/Mar/20/city/COPS20.htm >
> [The Philadelphia Inquirer] City &
Region >
> Wednesday, March 20,
1996 >
> 60 more drug convictions are to be reversed today >
The arrests involved corrupt police officers. 56 convictions have
> been thrown out already.
>
> By Mark Fazlollah
> INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
>
> A court today will throw out 60 tainted drug convictions in which
> corrupt 39th District officers were involved in the arrests --
more > than doubling the number of cases overturned in the ever-
widening > probe.
>
> Already, 56 convictions have been tossed out because of the >
involvement of six former 39th District officers who have pleaded
> guilty to federal corruption charges.
>
> That will bring to 116 the number of cases reversed in the year-
old > scandal. That number is certain to grow.
>
> ``It just keeps going. There's no end to it,'' said William
Davol, > spokesman for District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham.
>
> Davol said 54 cases had been scheduled to be overturned by Common
> Pleas Court Judge Legrome D. Davis today, but six more were added
> earlier this week.
>
> And, as more officers are indicted, more cases will need to be
> overturned.
>
> Last fall, for example, Mayor Rendell confirmed that a police-
FBI > investigation has expanded into the elite Highway Patrol
unit. Law > enforcement officials have said several patrol officers
stole drugs > from pushers and resold them to other pushers.
>
> ``It's incredible the damage that has been done to the system,''
> Davol said.
>
> Lawyers who have specialized in police corruption cases say there
> has never been an investigation as deep into police wrongdoing
as > the current effort.
>
> ``The feds have been very successful in spreading'' the
> investigation to include other officers, including members of the
> Highway Patrol, said L. George Parry, a private attorney who once
> headed the now-defunct police corruption unit of the District >
Attorney's Office.
>
> ``I've never heard of 60 separate cases being overturned,'' said
> Parry, who was a federal strike force prosecutor in Buffalo
before > then-District Attorney Edward G. Rendell lured him to
Philadelphia > in 1978 to head the police corruption unit.
ofr...@hotmail.com
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
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TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: 4 More Philly Cops to be Charged
From: Bob Witanek
From dad...@chesco.com Thu Apr 4 08:58:13 1996
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http://www2.phillynews.com/inquirer/96/Apr/04/front_page/COP04.htm
>
> [The Philadelphia Inquirer] Page One
>
> Thursday, April 4, 1996
>
> 4 more Phila. officers face federal charges
>
> By Joseph A. Slobodzian
> and Mark Fazlollah
> INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS
>
> Guns drawn, they ordered about 100 people to their knees and rifled
> through their pockets, taking all their money.
>
> Once the money was bagged, about $28,000, the thieves began to
> party, drinking the beer, eating the food.
>
> This remarkably brazen heist was the work of four Philadelphia
> police officers, law enforcement officials said yesterday in
> announcing another indictment in the city's police corruption
> scandal.
>
> The new charges stem from a Feb. 19, 1994, police raid on a
> cockfight in the basement of a North Philadelphia store -- a raid to
> cover what prosecutors called an armed robbery by the four officers,
> not an attempt to stop the illegal gambling on fighting roosters.
>
> A total of 10 officers have now been charged in the federal probe of
> police corruption that began last year with the arrest of five
> officers from the 39th District in North Philadelphia.
>
> Yesterday's indictment expanded the probe into the adjacent 25th
> District as well as the department's vaunted Highway Patrol, an
> elite spit-and-polish unit long considered beyond reproach.
>
> The two officers from the 25th District are Julio C. Aponte, 42, an
> 11-year veteran of the force, and Edward A. Greene, 38, a
> third-generation police officer who was a city prison guard before
> joining the force in 1980. Indicted with them were Highway Patrol
> officers Lester F. Johnson, 35, a 14-year veteran, and John P.
> O'Hanlon, 32, a 10-year veteran.
>
> It was a Saturday night cockfight in the basement of a store in the
> 3200 block of North Fifth Street. Booze was flowing. There was a vat
> filled with beer and bottles of rum.
>
> Soon after the fights started, the four officers barged in, weapons
> drawn.
>
> In an interview last night, store owner Ramon Nu nez, 48, said the
> officers yelled: ``Everyone freeze. Police.''
>
> The officers ordered everyone to get on the floor. Nu nez said
> Greene and O'Hanlon then went to each man and reached into his
> pockets searching for money.
>
> The two then piled the money in the center of the ring, Nu nez said.
> One of the men was ordered to pack it in a large bag that had been
> used for carrying roosters.
>
> ``When the bag was filled with money, it was two feet high,'' Nu nez
> said. ``And this wasn't loose bills. Almost everyone had the money
> bundled up with rubber bands. They didn't leave one cent. They took
> everything.''
>
> Nu nez thinks as much as $75,000 was taken that night.
>
> Hours later, at the 25th District station, Nu nez said he asked
> Aponte about the money.
>
> ``He said they were counting it,'' Nu nez said. ``But they never
> brought it back.''
>
> The four officers were charged in a 21-count indictment with federal
> robbery and attempted robbery, use of a firearm in a crime of
> violence, and conspiracy to violate civil rights.
>
> All four entered pleas of not guilty yesterday before U.S.
> Magistrate Judge Peter B. Scuderi.
>
> Attorneys for Johnson and Greene told Scuderi that they intended to
> strongly contest the charges.
>
> ``You can bet on it,'' said Johnson's attorney, Jack McMahon.
>
> The lawyer added that his client had made about 150 arrests since he
> joined the Highway Patrol in 1985 and had received ``30 to 40
> commendations and merit awards from the police commissioner and the
> mayor.''
>
> Police Commissioner Richard Neal said Aponte retired from the force
> several weeks ago; the three others were suspended yesterday with
> intent to dismiss in 30 days.
>
> Assistant U.S. Attorney William B. Carr Jr. said each man faces a
> likely prison term of 14 years without parole if convicted on all
> charges because of the mandatory jail terms that accompany firearms
> convictions.
>
> Yesterday's indictment was the long-expected sequel to the Feb. 28,
> 1995, indictment of the five 39th District officers.
>
> All five pleaded guilty and are to be sentenced April 15. A sixth
> officer was later charged, pleaded guilty and has been sentenced to
> five years in prison.
>
> The ongoing federal probe has become a public dissection of the
> city's criminal justice system. The admissions by the officers
> indicted a year ago that they created bogus search and arrest
> warrants so they could shake down suspected drug dealers has
> resulted in the dismissal of charges against 116 people arrested by
> the officers.
>
> Thirteen federal civil rights suits have been filed against the city
> and the convicted 39th District officers, and more filings are
> expected.
>
> Bradley S. Bridge, a lawyer coordinating the review of the corrupt
> officers' cases for the Public Defender's Office, said he would
> review all arrests made by Officers Aponte, Greene, O'Hanlon and
> Johnson.
>
> ``The corruption of these police officers has mortgaged our
> future,'' Bridge said. ``The indictments today are a down payment,
> albeit small, toward the redemption of our future. In the months to
> come, there will be more mortgage payments in the form of more
> indictments.''
>
> All four officers charged yesterday were ordered released by Scuderi
> after their attorneys assured him that they would post personal and
> family properties to secure bail of $100,000 to $150,000.
>
> The judge denied a motion by prosecutors to have Aponte held without
> bail for allegedly trying to persuade a witness to lie to federal
> investigators in another case.
>
> Prosecutor Carr said Aponte was secretly recorded Jan. 19 by Damian
> Padilla, a suspect with Aponte and two other men in a 1991 attempted
> home burglary in Port Richmond, telling Padilla not to cooperate
> with the FBI. In a transcript of the conversation made available
> yesterday, Aponte tells the informant to tell the FBI that the two
> had not seen each other for 1-1/2 years.
>
> ``Now they're going to ask you if you talked to me,'' Aponte is
> quoted as saying in the transcript. ``If you say yes, you talked to
> me . . . you sunked me, then you buried me.''
>
> Although Scuderi said he did not believe the audiotape warranted
> Aponte's pretrial detention, he raised Aponte's bail to $150,000 and
> warned him not to contact any witnesses.
>
> All four officers have checkered histories. Johnson is a defendant
> in a federal civil rights suit that also names five officers who
> have pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges.
>
> In the last two years, the city has paid a total of at least $85,000
> to settle federal lawsuits against O'Hanlon, Aponte and Greene.
>
> The indictment -- announced at a news conference attended by U.S.
> Attorney Michael R. Stiles, District Attorney Lynne Abraham, Neal
> and Bob C. Reutter, head of the Philadelphia office of the FBI --
> alleges that the four officers signed a police property receipt
> putting the amount at $2,404, and kept the rest for themselves.
>
> To make their raid seem legal, the indictment alleges, the four also
> arrested five people from the cockfight, including store owner Nu
> nez, for cruelty to animals and conspiracy. The indictment also
> alleges that the officers later sabotaged their testimony against
> the five -- who had been complaining about the theft of the money --
> to ensure that the charges against them were dismissed.
>
> Nu nez's attorney, Harry Rubin, said Nu nez had told the FBI about
> how police stole the money and then ate the victims' refreshments.
> ``It was like a party,'' Rubin said.
>
> Federal officials were tight-lipped yesterday about the status of
> the federal probe and how many more current of former officers might
> be indicted. They also took pains to put the corruption probe into
> perspective, noting that most Philadelphia police officers are
> honest ``and deserve the public's respect.''
>
> ``In my view this does not mean that the Philadelphia Police
> Department has more corruption than other police departments,'' said
> Stiles. ``It does mean that we are more determined to do something
> about it.''
>
> That view was also taken by Mayor Rendell, who told reporters: ``We
> ought to get a grip on reality.''
>
> ``There's always a problem, if it was one officer that committed a
> corrupt act,'' Rendell said. ``But so far, in years of
> investigation, we have a very small number of police, all acting on
> their own, all doing things that are not part of a pattern.''
>
> Neal said he remains ``prepared to go wherever the investigation
> takes us'' and said the probe ``should send a very clear message to
> anyone who would have any thoughts in terms of engaging in any form
> of corruption that we're committed to come after them, we're
> committed to identify them. We will fire them and they will be
> arrested.''
>
> District Attorney Abraham also said she wanted the probe to continue
> and urged ``as many police officers as possible who do deserve and
> earn the right to wear those badges and uniforms with honor'' to
> report any police corruption they discover.
>
> Four weeks after the raid, the five men arrested in the search
> appeared at a hearing before Municipal Court Judge Michael J.
> Conroy.
>
> Three of the arresting officers testified -- Aponte, Greene and
> O'Hanlon.
>
> O'Hanlon was questioned the most extensively about money that he and
> his partner -- Johnson -- had seized. He said 40 to 50 men attending
> the cockfight were searched, but no money was taken from anyone.
>
> Question: How much money was confiscated?
>
> O'Hanlon: ``There was $2,400, $2,404 I believe is the exact
> number.''
>
> Question: From where was this money confiscated?
>
> O'Hanlon: ``Inside the ring. . . . Off to the side in the ring. Just
> a big pile of money.''
>
> All that was a lie, federal prosecutors now say.
>
> [Image]
> Inquirer staff writers Richard Jones and Vanessa Williams
> contributed to this article.
ofr...@hotmail.com
From: mre...@ix.netcom.com (Marnie Regen )
To: DRC...@drcnet.org
Subject: corrupt cops chronology
Message-ID: <1996041104...@DFW-IX2.IX.NETCOM.COM>
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Thursday, April 4, 1996
Some major events of corruption probe
By Richard Jones and Mark Fazlollah
INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS
Yesterday's indictment of four Philadelphia police officers was the
latest blow to a department already reeling from 13 months of
scandal.
Here is a chronology of key events in the corruption probe:
Feb. 28, 1995 -- A federal grand jury indicts five former officers
in the 39th District in North Philadelphia -- John Baird, 40; Thomas
DeGovanni, 44; Steven Brown, 48; James Ryan, 39; and Thomas Ryan,
38. They are charged with planting drugs on suspects, stealing more
than $100,000 in cash and property, and falsifying police reports.
They and a sixth former officer, Louis J. Maier 3d, later plead
guilty.
March 15, 1995 -- Joe Morris, 53, in prison for a 1988 drug
conviction, is freed at the request of the District Attorney's
Office. His is the first of more than 100 convictions overturned by
the courts because of misconduct by the six former officers.
April 7, 1995 -- Two former 19th District officers -- Derrick Mayes,
31, and Kevin Daniels, 33 -- are convicted of stealing cash,
planting drugs and making false arrests of young men in West
Philadelphia. Each is sentenced to five to 10 years.
June 8, 1995 -- A former 35th District officer, Sgt. Gene Lomazoff,
39, is convicted of stopping motorists for minor infractions, then
shaking them down for cash. He is sentenced to seven to 22 years.
July 26, 1995 -- Two former 39th District officers -- Brown, named
in the February indictment, and Robert Miller, 47 -- are charged
with running a lucrative fencing operation out of a North
Philadelphia variety store.
Aug. 14, 1995 -- In the first of a series of mass transfers, Police
Commissioner Richard Neal guts the 39th District's command, shifting
the captain and 11 other supervisors to new assignments. In the 35th
District, 11 supervisors are moved to new posts.
Aug. 15, 1995 -- City Councilman Michael Nutter criticizes Mayor
Rendell's response to the widening scandal and calls for an
independent commission with broad powers to investigate police
misconduct. An existing commission is purely advisory.
Aug. 30, 1995 -- Federal investigators subpoena arrest logs in the
22d, 23d, 24th, 25th and 26th Districts and the Highway Patrol. The
logs cover up to 100,000 arrests over 10 years.
Aug. 31, 1995 -- Neal announces a 10-step plan to fight police
corruption, including beefing up the department's Internal Affairs
Division, expanding ethics training, and instituting random drug
testing. Three men who claim they were falsely arrested by corrupt
officers file the first federal class-action suit stemming from the
scandal.
Sept. 19, 1995 -- Before a packed City Council chamber, the Police
Advisory Commission opens public hearings into the case of Moises
DeJesus, a North Philadelphia man who died in 1994, three days after
struggling with arresting officers. ``He was hit, then handcuffed,
then hit again, and again, and again,'' said one witness. ``He was
thrown in [ the police van ] like a dog. That's when I said, `He's
dead. He's dead.' '' At the close of the hearing, about 200 off-duty
officers chant: ``Kangaroo, kangaroo!''
Sept. 26, 1995 -- Breaking with a traditional code of silence, the
president of the group representing the city's black officers calls
on all police to turn in corrupt colleagues and report misconduct,
past or present. ``The credibility of this police department is at
stake,'' says David E. Fisher, president of the Guardian Civic
League. ``These rogue cops are . . . tarnishing the badge.''
Nov. 16, 1995 -- The Inquirer reports that the Rendell
administration paid $20 million over the preceding 28 months to
settle more than 225 lawsuits alleging police misconduct. A
spokesman for the mayor calls the upsurge ``a statistical anomaly.''
Dec. 21, 1995 -- In its report on the death of Moises DeJesus, the
Police Advisory Commission calls for the suspension of six officers.
The report says that one officer struck DeJesus with a flashlight or
nightstick and that five others ``were not truthful in reporting
what they observed.''
April 3 -- Four more officers -- Julio C. Aponte and Edward A.
Greene of the 25th District and Lester F. Johnson and John P.
O'Hanlon of the Highway Patrol -- surrender for booking on federal
corruption charges.
-
> April 8 -- After waiting 111 days for action, the Police Advisory
> Commission calls on Rendell and Neal to punish the six officers
> cited in its report. ``Any further delay,'' panel members wrote, ``.
> . . does an injustice to the citizens of Philadelphia.''
> April 15 -- A federal judge sentences the five officers indicted in
> February 1995 -- Baird, DeGovanni, Brown and the two Ryans -- to
> prison terms ranging from 10 months to 13 years.
ofr...@hotmail.com
> Local
> [Philadelphia Online] THE PHILADELPHIA Tuesday, April 16,
> DAILY NEWS
> 1996
>
>
> Ex-cops get little pity
>
> by Jim Smith
> Daily News Staff Writer
>
> The four ex-39th District cops said they were sorry for robbing and
> assaulting dozens of suspected drug dealers and for trumping up
> reasons to search and arrest victims.
>
> One even cried.
>
> But the apologies and the tears and the ratting -- mostly on each
> other -- didn't do them much good.
>
> With stunning severity, all four were sentenced to long prison terms
> yesterday by U.S. District Judge Robert S. Gawthrop III.
>
> The judge, for the most part, refused entreaties of prosecutors and
> defense attorneys to significantly reward three of the four
> defendants for squealing on each other and, in some cases, on other
> corrupt cops.
>
> The judge, however, did show mercy on a fifth defendant, Thomas
> Ryan, the first to turn informant and the least involved, sending
> Ryan to jail for only 10 months.
>
> The leader of the corrupt officers, John Baird, whom fellow officers
> called ``Wacky Jacky'' -- a man who liked to play a sadistic form of
> Russian roulette with victims, putting a gun to their heads and
> pulling the trigger on an empty chamber -- was sentenced to 13 years
> in jail without chance of parole.
>
> The punishment was four years longer than that required by Baird's
> sentencing guidelines.
>
> If it withstands an appeal, it would be one of the stiffest
> sentences in modern times in a Philadelphia police corruption case.
>
> ``The governmental functions in this town have been disrupted
> immeasurably,'' the judge said, referring to the overturning of more
> than 100 drug convictions as a result of wrongdoing by Baird and his
> three main associates over a three-year period.
>
> Baird, 41, a trim, square-jawed man with long graying blond hair
> parted in the middle, has been in jail for several months and came
> to court in a khaki prison uniform.
>
> He showed no emotion as deputy U.S. marshals hauled him from the
> courtroom in handcuffs to begin his sentence.A jail has yet to be
> designated by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.
>
> While it was important to ``loosen tongues'' of potential witnesses
> by rewarding those who inform on others, the judge said his primary
> purpose in dealing harshly with the ex-cops was ``to deter other
> police officers from committing . . . crimes in the first place.''
>
> Baird, who stole more than $100,000 for his corrupt crew, would get
> no ``silver platter'' from him, Gawthrop added, rejecting requests
> for leniency from Assistant U.S. Attorneys William B. Carr Jr. and
> Joel Goldstein, and from Baird's defense attorney, Elizabeth
> Ainslie.
>
> At one point the judge suggested that Baird's request for mercy
> ``smacked of blackmail.'' The judge noted that Baird had told a
> court probation officer, Thomas Wolfe, that other corruption cases
> ``would dry up'' if he was dealt a harsh sentence.
>
> ``Of course,'' Ainslie said, when asked if she'd appeal the stiff
> sentence.
>
> Ex-cop Steven Brown, 49, who bawled over the shame he brought to his
> family, drew 10 years from the judge, the maximum required by
> Brown's sentencing guidelines.
>
> ``I locked up drug dealers. They were drug dealers. I went about it
> the wrong way,'' Brown told the judge. ``I became a thief . . . I
> needed the money.
>
> ``Seeing the money the drug dealers had and the way they were
> living, I took it upon myself'' to steal. ``I admit it. I hope they
> know I am sorry,'' Brown added, before being returned to prison.
>
> Ex-Sgt. Thomas DeGovanni, 45, drew seven years in prison, but was
> given a week to spend with his wife and three children before the
> term begins.
>
> ``My behavior was . . . immoral,'' DeGovanni admitted.
>
> ``We all start out with good intentions. Too often we fail. I
> failed.''
>
> James Ryan, whose ongoing cooperation recently led to the
> indictments of four other cops for stealing about $30,000 from a
> cockfight -- and to other still-secret investigations involving
> members of the Highway Patrol -- was sentenced to six years.
>
> Ryan, 40, asked for 30 days to report to prison. But the judge gave
> him only about seven minutes to surrender.
>
> Gawthrop told James Ryan he had had ``enough free will'' to resist a
> cancer in the ranks of the Police Department.
>
> ``Tragically for you, you took the path of corruption,'' the judge
> added.
>
> ``I cannot factor out the ugliness with which his case abounds,''
> the judge told prosecutors, rejecting a plea for more leniency.
>
> James Ryan's sentence was two years less than the minimum required
> by his guidelines, but two years more than the four-year term the
> prosecutors had recommended.
>
> The 10-month sentence went to Thomas Ryan, who was the least
> involved and the first to inform on Baird.
>
> Prosecutors said Thomas Ryan was involved criminally with Baird only
> one time, more than five years ago in 1991, the night he and Baird
> illegally detained and roughed up a college student who had the
> misfortune of getting lost on their beat. The student, Arthur
> Colbert, resembled a drug dealer Baird wanted to roust.
>
> Baird also broke into Colbert's apartment in Cheltenham searching
> for drugs or money while the student was kept in a 39th District
> cell.
>
> In a letter to the judge, Thomas Ryan said he didn't have the
> courage that night to stand up to Baird.
>
> Baird ``had friends throughout the ranks of the Police Department,''
> Thomas Ryan told the judge.
>
> The student's complaint the next day eventually got Baird, Thomas
> Ryan and DeGovanni fired and brought in the FBI to help investigate
> corruption in the 39th District.Thomas Ryan's prison sentence was 14
> months less than the minimum required by his guidelines.
>
> Defense attorney Frank DeSimone noted that Thomas Ryan, who now
> works as a ``residential counselor'' in a group home for abused boys
> in North Philadelphia, had letters of support and a signed petition
> seeking mercy on his behalf from residents and businesspeople in the
> 39th District.
>
> One admirer, Joan Downs, a reformed crack addict, testified
> yesterday that Thomas Ryan helped convince her to get treatment.
>
> ``Tom is still there for me. He's my knight in shining armor,''
> Downs told the judge.The judge called her testimony ``gripping'' and
> said it ``drives home the particular tragedy'' of Thomas Ryan's
> case.
>
> ``You bore every hallmark of being a wonderful police officer,'' the
> judge said. ``I think this was an aberration, but it happened and
> that fact is ineradicable.''
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>
ofr...@hotmail.com
>
> [The Philadelphia Inquirer] Page One
>
>
> Corrupt Officers Get Harsh Terms
> 5 from 39th District given up to 13 years
>
> By Joseph A. Slobodzian
> and Mark Fazlollah
> INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS
>
> outrageous misconduct for 10 years and left the city with one of the
> biggest police scandals in its history, was sentenced yesterday to
> 13 years in prison without parole.
>
> Looking more like a wraith than like the flamboyant officer who
> routinely beat, framed and stole from citizens, John ``Wacky Jack''
> Baird was led away stone-faced and silent.
>
> Four other officers who helped make the 39th District a home for
> scandal received sentences ranging from 10 years to 10 months.
>
> Citing the legacy of the corrupt officers -- 116 of their criminal
> cases overturned and more coming, millions of dollars in civil suits
> filed and more coming, a justice system shaken to its roots -- U.S.
> District Judge Robert Gawthrop 3d did not just sentence the five
> officers.
>
> He knocked them out of the park.
>
> Gawthrop, 53, a former county prosecutor and a veteran of nine years
> on the federal bench, told Baird that he had ``squashed the Bill of
> Rights into the mud'' and that in his 14 years on the city police
> force he had ``erred badly, grievously and repeatedly.''
>
> He then sentenced the 41-year-old officer to almost twice what
> federal prosecutors recommended.
>
> Federal prosecutors pleaded for leniency, praising the way Baird had
> helped them root out corruption by helping expand the FBI probe.
>
> Gawthrop bristled at a prosecution suggestion that ``police
> corruption in this city is inexorable'' and said he felt the need to
> ``to deter other police officers from committing these crimes in the
> first place.''
>
> Several of the five former officers and their attorneys spoke and
> acted as if they had been betrayed by the severity of the sentences.
>
> Baird, for one, will appeal his sentence to the Third U.S. Circuit
> Court of Appeals, said his attorney, Elizabeth K. Ainslie, who told
> Gawthrop that Baird's extensive cooperation and ``prodigious
> memory'' had worked against him at sentencing.
>
> ``I think the message that this sends [ to other corrupt officers ]
> ,'' Ainslie told Gawthrop, ``is don't tell them anything they don't
> already know. . . . The message will be: Either fight it, or take
> your medicine and shut up.''
>
> Baird, whose swashbuckling style and high arrest record earned him a
> reputation as a cop's cop, showed no emotion as the judge sternly
> imposed the sentence. Baird has been in jail awaiting sentencing
> since October, and the time away seemed to have drained the officer
> once known on the streets of North Philly as Blondie for his thick
> blond hair. The Baird who faced the judge yesterday stood in an
> olive prison jumpsuit, tall, gaunt and pale, his head listing
> slightly to the right.
>
> Federal prosecutors sidestepped questions about whether the
> sentences might deter other police officers from disclosing
> corruption.
>
> ``The sentencing would have been harsher if there had not been
> cooperation,'' said Assistant U.S. Attorney William B. Carr Jr.,
> adding that strong sentences might deter future misconduct. Carr
> declined to say whether more indictments were imminent.
>
> With yesterday's sentencings, the first chapter in the continuing
> federal probe of city police ended.
>
> It began in February 1995 with the indictment of the five former
> officers from North Philadelphia's 39th District on charges that
> they stole more than $100,000 from suspected drug dealers, who were
> usually searched or arrested with bogus warrants. It has grown, as
> Gawthrop described it, like ``a cancer.''
>
> Last August a sixth former 39th District officer was charged,
> pleaded guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. And on April 3
> four more officers were indicted on corruption charges: two from the
> adjacent 25th District and two from the Highway Patrol, all accused
> of stealing $28,000 from the participants in a cockfight they
> raided. All four are awaiting trial.
>
> The probe has resulted in a wholesale review of 1,800 arrests
> involving the five original officers, and the District Attorney's
> Office has since pressed for the dismissal of charges against 116.
>
> And the case review may be about to go much higher.
>
> A sentencing memo filed by federal prosecutors for yesterday's
> hearings stated that Baird's ``pattern of similar corrupt activity''
> began in 1984 -- four years earlier than alleged in the indictment.
>
> Bradley S. Bridge of the Public Defender's Office said yesterday
> that ``if the sentence reports are correct that these officers'
> corruption extends back to the early '80s, we must go back and
> extend our search for people whose lives were devastated by the
> police officers to the early '80s.''
>
> The proceedings began at 9:30 a.m. with the sentencing of James
> Ryan, 40, the officer who first protested his innocence and then
> cooperated, expanding the scope of the federal probe.
>
> Ryan's attorney, Brian J. McMonagle, urged a sentence below the
> eight-to-10-year range recommended under the federal sentencing
> guidelines, and Carr said Ryan's cooperation was so important he
> deserved no more than four years.
>
> ``He never wanted to go to that unit,'' McMonagle said of the 39th
> District, ``and when he got there he made a ton of mistakes and
> begged to get out of there.''
>
> Ryan, who boasts a series of commendations, insisted that all but
> seven months of his 17-year career were exemplary and told Gawthrop:
> ``I took a lot of pride in being a police officer. It was basically
> my life.''
>
> ``You are a grown man,'' Gawthrop told Ryan, standing ramrod
> straight below the judge. ``You could take it or leave it. . . .
> Tragically for you you took the path of corruption, and now is
> judgment day.''
>
> The sentence -- six years in prison and a $4,000 fine -- stunned
> Ryan. So did what came next. McMonagle asked that Ryan be given 20
> days to report for prison.
>
> ``I'll give you to quarter of 11 to report,'' Gawthrop said. ``Until
> then you're a free man . . .''
>
> That gave Ryan eight minutes of freedom.
>
> Ryan whirled among a contingent of family and friends, making
> hurried goodbyes. As marshals began to escort him into custody, he
> turned to one federal investigator and said he was sorry he had
> cooperated.
>
> Next up was Thomas Ryan, 39, whose criminal conduct was limited to
> the Feb. 24, 1991, incident in which he and Baird stopped and took
> into custody Temple University college student Arthur Colbert.
>
> Colbert was taken into a vacant crack house, where Baird stuck a gun
> in his face and threatened to shoot him. The pair later went to
> Colbert's Cheltenham apartment, which Baird entered and searched
> illegally, before they returned and released the shaken student.
>
> Thomas Ryan, who retired after injuring his back and now counsels
> teens in the 39th District, yesterday told Gawthrop that night was
> his first pairing with Baird and was ``like a roller-coaster.'' Ryan
> said that he reported the incident to his supervisor but that
> supervisor was Sgt. Thomas DeGovanni -- a Baird ally -- and the
> probe went nowhere.
>
> ``I have to apologize again to Arthur Colbert,'' he told the judge.
> ``What he experienced that day should not happen in this country.''
>
> Ryan's case was ``distinct from the others,'' the judge said, and he
> sentenced him to 10 months -- significantly below the 24- to
> 30-month guideline -- and fined him $1,000.
>
> Ryan declined comment after the sentencing. Gawthrop gave him 20
> days to surrender to authorities.
>
> It was the Colbert incident, and Colbert's dogged persistence in
> pressing for an investigation of what happened to him, that
> triggered the federal probe in 1992.
>
> Colbert, reached in Detroit, where he now works with juvenile
> delinquents, said he was pleased that ``justice is finally done.''
>
> ``Everybody did a good job. The FBI, the police, Internal Affairs,
> they all worked together,'' Colbert said.
>
> After Thomas Ryan, DeGovanni, 45, the 39th District supervisor who
> admitted letting Baird's crimes continue unimpeded, was next and got
> seven years.
>
> ``I'm not going to stand here and make any excuses,'' DeGovanni told
> Gawthrop. ``We all start out with good intentions, and sometimes we
> fail. I failed.''
>
> While Gawthrop acknowledged that Baird was the ``prime mover in this
> ugly chain of misery that you have visited upon a lot of people,''
> he told DeGovanni he bore much of the blame.
>
> ``It may be trite and perhaps a bit Trumanesque,'' Gawthrop added,
> ``but the buck stops with you. You could have stopped the whole
> thing if you hadn't been on the take . . . You went along with it,
> gladly lining your pockets and crumpling the Constitution in your
> fist.''
>
> The last to be sentenced was Steven Brown, 49, Baird's frequent
> partner on his late-night cruises of North Philadelphia in search of
> suspected drug dealers to shake down. He was sentenced to 10 years.
>
> Brown said he had realized that he was doing wrong and even warned
> the other corrupt 39th District officers they should stop: ``I told
> all of those guys, `You're going to bet banged.' ''
ofr...@hotmail.com
>
> Tuesday, April 16, 1996
>
>
> INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
>
> The damage shows in the eyes of jurors who cast a wary eye on police
> testimony.
>
> It shows in the way the top police command has tightened control
> over some field units, slowing the move toward a decentralized,
> community police force.
>
> And it shows in the anger of street officers and detectives, who say
> they have been unjustly tarred by the villainous actions of a few.
>
> ``Those guys, what they did was unconscionable -- unconscionable,''
> said Homicide Detective Joseph Fischer, a 25-year veteran.
>
> ``Those guys'' are five corrupt 39th District officers who have
> admitted robbing suspects, planting drugs and lying about it in
> court. Yesterday, in a daylong series of sentencing hearings before
> a dour federal judge, several were given lengthy sentences.
>
> The unhappy results of their actions have been far-reaching: About
> 110 drug-conviction cases have been or are being overturned by the
> District Attorney's Office. Some of those people have sued,
> demanding millions of dollars in damages.
>
> Yesterday, people inside and outside the Police Department said that
> was only part of the cost of corruption, and that there were other,
> hidden costs, some of which will take years to remedy.
>
> Maybe the most serious penalty is the one that honest police
> officers are paying every day, on the street and in the courtroom --
> the loss of public confidence.
>
> ``The lawyers are having a field day on cops in court,'' complained
> one high-ranking police official. ``Every time a cop goes into
> court, they think he's lying. . . . With O.J., officers were accused
> of lying. Now here you have these guys admit they lied.''
>
> Federal and city investigators are looking into a pattern of police
> abuse, primarily against poor African American and Latino residents.
> Police have been charged with framing people, lying to obtain search
> warrants, stealing money, false arrest, and beating and threatening
> citizens.
>
> It's not just that a few Philadelphia officers have been convicted
> of corruption, several criminal justice authorities said. It's that
> the Mollen Commission uncovered very similar wrongdoing in New York.
> And that a police scandal has erupted in New Orleans. And that, on
> the other side of the country, a racist police officer named Mark
> Fuhrman lied on the witness stand in the double-murder trial of O.J.
> Simpson.
>
> Those events have hurt police in the larger public view.
>
> The five corrupt 39th District officers have hurt them locally.
> Fischer says he has felt that sting in court. ``These guys have
> damaged our credibility,'' he said. ``Anybody who says otherwise is
> kidding themselves.''
>
> Fischer said that a few years back, police testimony was invariably
> accepted as truthful. But now he says he has noticed the way some
> jurors eye him on the witness stand.
>
> ``It's almost like if you say something out of the ordinary, there's
> this automatic feeling of disbelief,'' he said. ``You have a good
> case, and then you sit there and wonder why the jury didn't believe
> you.''
>
> Some police commanders say they have noticed that headquarters has
> tightened its grip on various field units, fearful that too much
> freedom may breed corruption. Some see the department taking an
> uneasy, uncertain step away from community policing, toward a more
> centralized decision-making process. And they worry that process may
> accelerate if more officers are indicted. ``If it's just this, we'll
> be OK,'' said one supervisor. ``But how much more of this is to
> come, and how bad is it going to get? Is this the end, the middle or
> the beginning? That's the real issue, and only the people doing the
> investigation really know.''
>
> Those people aren't telling.
>
> But U.S. District Judge Robert Gawthrop 3d sent his own message to
> corrupt officers yesterday, pounding former Officer Jack Baird, who
> has been described as a ringleader, with a 13-year prison term --
> four years more than called for under federal guidelines.
>
> ``The primary purpose of today's sentence,'' the judge said, ``is to
> deter other police officers from committing those crimes in the
> first place.''
>
> Police Commissioner Richard Neal said he fully supported that. ``One
> corrupt cop is one corrupt cop too many,'' he said yesterday.
>
> There's no question that police credibility has suffered, he said.
> But people need to realize, he said, that the actions of a few
> corrupt officers are not representative of the entire force.
>
> ``You have so many honest police officers who come to work each day,
> and all they want to do is serve,'' Neal said. ``We know the vast
> majority of our police officers are honest. They need to hold their
> heads up and be proud of this organization.''
>
> Neal was not the only officer upset about Baird and the others. At
> the Police Administration Building yesterday, some officers were
> nearly gleeful when they heard about some of the lengthy sentences.
> ``That's great. That's great,'' said one former Highway Patrol
> officer. Another said he hoped Baird would be raped in prison.
>
> But they and others acknowledged that putting five corrupt officers
> in jail does not solve the Police Department's problem.
>
> ``There are many people in Philadelphia now, not only in the African
> American community but throughout the city, who believe there has
> been significant corruption in the department,'' said David
> Rudovsky, a veteran civil-rights lawyer. ``My sense is, across the
> city, there is distrust now of police testimony and credibility.''
>
> Regaining that trust is no small task, he said. It will require
> significant changes in police training, supervision and
> accountability, he said. Rudovsky said he expects that under the
> best circumstances, it could take years for the department to regain
> its standing.
>
> Fischer, who spends his days chasing people wanted for murder,
> thinks that time frame is about right. And he holds Baird and the
> others directly responsible.
>
> ``Those guys, what they did, it's a disgrace,'' he said. ``What they
> did is going to be here for a long, long time.''
ofr...@hotmail.com
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bwit...@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Re: Philly Cop News
Posted: Ronnie Dadone
http://www2.phillynews.com/daily_news/96/Apr/15/local/KOPS15.htm
Local > [Philadelphia Online] THE PHILADELPHIA Monday,
April 15, DAILY NEWS
1996 >
>
Leniency sought for dirty cops
>
by Jim Smith
Daily News Staff Writer
>
> Federal prosecutors are recommending leniency for five former
39th > District police officers who are to be sentenced today for
> conspiring to rob and violate the civil rights of dozens of >
suspected drug dealers.
>
> While acknowledging that the defendants' crimes have had ``a >
devastating effect upon local law enforcement,'' prosecutors say
the > five deserve to be rewarded for squealing on each other and,
in some > cases, on other corrupt cops.
>
> ``In practical terms, the incentive to cooperate will be crushed
. . > . by . . . imposition of a sentence which does not adequately
reward > meaningful cooperation,'' the prosecutors wrote in a
memorandum to > U.S. District Judge Robert S. Gawthrop III. > >
``The government urges the court to send the message, to all police
> officers under scrutiny, that while their corruption warrants >
substantial punishment, their cooperation will be meaningfully >
recognized at sentencing,'' the prosecutors added. >
> The memorandum was signed by assistant U.S. attorneys Joel D. >
Goldstein and William B. Carr Jr. and their boss, U.S. Attorney >
Michael R. Stiles, the area's top federal lawman.
>
> The prosecutors say the corrupt cops stole more than $100,000
from > suspected drug dealers and routinely made false statements
to get > search warrants or to justify illegal searches and
arrests. >
> The leader of the crooked cops, John Baird, turned informant and
> told authorities how he had falsified probable cause and
sometimes > added drugs to what was seized.
>
> Baird's ``candor'' and ``prodigious recall'' enabled local >
prosecutors to reverse convictions in tainted cases, the
prosecutors > noted.
>
> Baird, they say, gave ``firsthand evidence of the practice of >
systemically manufacturing legal justification to investigate, >
detain, enter premises, search and arrest.''
>
> The prosecutors disputed news accounts that suggested some of the
> defendants had admitted framing innocent people.
>
> Under federal sentencing guidelines, two ex-cops, Stephen Brown,
49, > and James Ryan, 40, face eight to 10 years, according to >
calculations by the prosecutors and by the U.S. Probation Office.
>
> James Ryan is now the government's star witness in ongoing police
> corruption probes targeting members of the Highway Patrol. > >
Two highway cops were indicted recently along with two 25th
District > officers for allegedly stealing about $30,000 at a North
> Philadelphia cockfight.
>
> While James Ryan contributed no new information to the
investigation > of corrupt 39th District cops, he provided
``valuable information'' > about Highway Patrol, the prosecutors
said.
>
> ``Indeed, there are other substantial matters which have already
> resulted from James Ryan's cooperation which we are not yet in
a > position to disclose,'' the prosecutors added.
>
> Baird, 41, the admitted leader of the pack, one who at times
pointed > a gun at suspects' heads to force them to tell where
money and drugs > were hidden, faces sentencing guidelines of seven
to nine years, > primarily because he squealed more and negotiated
a better plea > bargain.
>
> Ex-Sgt. Thomas DeGovanni, 45, is facing 6-1/2 to 8 years. > >
Thomas Ryan, 39, the first to cooperate and the least involved in
> the scheme, faces only 2 to 2-1/2 years because he was not part
of > the February 1988 to April 1991 conspiracy with the four other
39th > District crooks.
>
> The prosecutors are asking the judge to go below the minimum >
sentences for all five defendants.
>
> But the judge also has the option of going higher and imposing
> stiffer prison terms.
>
> This option is based on matters not taken into account by the >
sentencing guidelines, including ``the magnitude of harm'' caused
by > the ex-cops' conduct and how they ``significantly disrupted''
the > local criminal-justice system.
>
> So far, 116 drug convictions have been overturned, and more are
> under review by the district attorney's office.
>
> U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III doubled the maximum
guideline > sentence earlier this year for a sixth 39th District
> thief-with-a-badge, Louis Maier, 38.
>
> Bartle sentenced Maier to five years in prison when Maier's >
guidelines called for 24 to 30 months.
>
> Maier, a second-generation cop and nephew of a city judge, is >
appealing the sentence.
ofr...@hotmail.com
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bwit...@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Philly Cops
Posted: Ronnie Dadone
http://www2.phillynews.com/inquirer/96/Apr/17/city/PHA17.htm > >
[The Philadelphia Inquirer] City &
Region >
Wednesday, April 17,
1996 >
> Ex-officer's trial focuses on graft in another agency >
One PHA officer has pleaded guilty to robbing suspects. The case
is likened to the 39th District's.
>
By Mark Fazlollah
>
> INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
>
> Officers Ricardo Leon and Edward Malveiro used their badges to
rob, > planted drugs on suspects and perjured themselves on the
witness > stand, authorities said.
>
> But Leon and Malveiro were not from the 39th District. They
weren't > even from the Philadelphia Police Department. The two
Philadelphia > Housing Authority police officers were fired after
an internal > investigation concluded that they had robbed and
framed suspects. >
> Malveiro pleaded guilty last year to robbery, perjury, theft and
> other charges. Leon is on trial in Common Pleas Court.
>
> William Drummond, deputy chief of the PHA police, testified >
yesterday that suspicions focused on the two when a North >
Philadelphia woman, Theresa Brown, complained in August 1992 that
> two PHA officers had stolen $400 from her.
>
> Drummond said in an interview later that the charges against Leon
> and Malveiro sketched a pattern of misconduct similar to that in
the > 39th District, where crooked officers robbed and framed
suspects and > falsified police reports.
>
> ``It was the same thing,'' Drummond said.
>
> Leon's trial started Monday, the same day a federal judge
sentenced > five former 39th District officers to prison terms
ranging from 10 > months to 13 years.
>
> Drummond testified yesterday that on the day Brown lodged her >
complaint, she identified Leon from a photograph as one of the >
officers who had robbed her.
>
> The next day, Aug. 27, 1992, Brown returned to the PHA
headquarters > and said she had seen one of the officers who had
robbed her. She > had spotted him in a car at Sixth and Norris
Streets. Police deter > mined that it was registered to Leon, who
lives in the 300 block of > East Sheldon Street.
>
> The two officers were charged with planting drugs on three other
> people. Idella Johnson testified yesterday that Leon planted ``16
> bundles'' -- about 350 vials -- of crack cocaine on her while >
arresting her Oct. 21, 1992.
>
> Johnson, who was arrested near her home at Damien and Somerset
> Streets, said she had only about 30 vials of crack that she was
> taking to a party.
>
> After the arrest, Johnson pleaded guilty to distributing cocaine
and > was sentenced to 3-1/2 years in prison. After the misconduct
charges > against Malveiro and Leon came to light, her sentence was
reduced to > 11 months.
>
> Drummond said it was hard to build a case against Leon and
Malveiro > because the witnesses were drug dealers with long rap
sheets. He > said the two officers targeted dealers because they
were ``the most > vulnerable'' and were unlikely to complain to
police -- the same > pattern found in the 39th District.
>
> Malveiro, of the 6300 block of Sylvester Street, is scheduled to
> testify against Leon today.
>
> Leon was fired from the PHA police force in 1992, after the >
allegations against him first surfaced. An arbitrator reinstated
him > in September 1993 and ordered PHA to give him $19,028 in back
pay. > He was fired again a year ago after he was formally charged
with > robbery and other offenses.
>
> Leon's attorney, Jeremy Gonzalez Ibrahim, said the arbitrator's
> action indicated that the case against his client was flawed. >
> ``Ricardo Leon got his job back, and the investigation by PHA was
> flawed from the start and fraught with corrupt witnesses,'' he
said.
==============
ofr...@hotmail.com
>
> [The Philadelphia Inquirer]
Opinion >
Wednesday, April 17,
1996 >
> Throwing the book A federal judge made no mistake in showing
no mercy to the 39th District's bad cops.
>
> ``Tell us the truth!'' Officer John Baird shouted at Temple >
University student Arthur Colbert.
>
> Then Baird and Officer John Ryan began whacking Mr. Colbert with
> their long-handled black flashlights.
>
> ``You stupid nigger! Stop bulls -- ing us, you pea-brained . .
. !'' >
> Baird pulled his gun. Ryan stood alongside Mr. Colbert with a
long > two-by-four, then pushed it into Mr. Colbert's head. > >
After terrorizing Mr. Colbert for denying (truthfully) that he was
a > drug dealer, Baird squatted in front of the student. > >
``We're going to give you a few seconds,'' Baird said. Then he >
pointed a gun at Mr. Colbert's head and began the countdown. > >
``If you don't tell us what we want to know, I'm going to blow your
> head away,'' threatened Baird, according to the account given by
Mr. > Colbert to Inquirer reporters.
>
> It was Feb. 24, 1991.
>
> Just imagine that Arthur Colbert, who had no police record and
had > committed no crime, was your son. How would you feel about
what > these officers in blue did?
>
> And how would you feel if prosecutors had made a deal to go easy
on > the two officers -- who faced a slew of serious charges -- in
> exchange for ratting on other crooked pals?
>
> Would you feel outraged?
>
> Well, U.S. District Judge Robert Gawthrop 3d just made your day.
>
> He properly sent a strong message to all police officers tempted
to > cross the line into a life of crime that they will get big
time > behind bars.
>
> And even if that does make it more difficult for federal
prosecutors > to make fast cases against other crooked cops, this
federal judge > may scare a few cops straight.
>
> He made it clear to Baird that police officers should not expect
to > bargain for short jail time after they've ``squashed the Bill
of > Rights in the mud.''
>
> He gave Baird the maximum 13 years without parole and gave six
years > to Ryan, who could have gotten 10, though he felt he
deserved about > four in light of his cooperation with prosecutors.
Former Sgt. > Thomas DeGovanni, who was involved in covering up
several crimes, > including the Colbert case, got seven years. Ex-
Officer Steven Brown > got the maximum 10 years for his crimes. >
> Retired Officer Thomas Ryan, who was the first in the 39th
District > to begin talking to prosecutors, did get off mildly,
with 10 months > in prison. Crimes committed by the five officers
from the 39th > caused 116 tainted convictions to be thrown out.
These cases > triggered lawsuits it's costing the city millions to
settle. >
> The case of the blond, swashbuckling, rights-smashing Baird is
not > over just because he is in jail.
>
> The city still needs to commission the special panel it has
promised > the citizens of Philadelphia. The panel will look into
comprehensive > changes in a police department that handed Baird
15 commendations > over the same years he was racking up 23 formal
citizen complaints.
ofr...@hotmail.com
Posted: dad...@chesco.com Thu Apr 18 07:14:38 1996
From: Ronnie Dadone
http://www2.phillynews.com/inquirer/96/Apr/18/front_page/WILL18.htm
>
> [The Philadelphia Inquirer] Page
One >
Thursday, April 18,
1996 >
Police Sting Undercut by Ex-Chief
Williams' moves in '88 focus of probe
>
By Mark Fazlollah
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
?1996 The Philadelphia Inquirer
> A sting aimed at four Philadelphia police officers suspected of
> pocketing money from a drug raid was scotched when then-Police
> Commissioner Willie L. Williams transferred the officers the day
> before they were to be lured into a motel room and tempted with
a > pile of cash.
>
> Now, eight years later, city and federal investigators are
looking > into both the alleged theft of drug money and the sudden
transfers, > which puzzled and infuriated investigators trying to
ferret out > evidence of police misconduct.
>
> The 1988 sting, planned by the Police Department's elite
> anti-corruption team, the Ethics Accountability Division (EAD),
was > called off after Williams moved the four officers from the
Major > Crimes Unit to street patrols in districts around the city.
None of > the four was ever charged with misconduct.
>
> Williams, now chief of police in Los Angeles, said through a >
spokeswoman that he would have no comment. Williams served 28 years
> on the Philadelphia force.
>
> Two former EAD officials, both of whom asked not to be named,
said > Williams had been briefed in advance on the planned sting
and was > told that one of the four officers had been
surreptitiously recorded > talking about stolen drug money. > >
The former officials said Williams gave no indication that he was
> about to shift the officers to new assignments.
>
> A former assistant Philadelphia district attorney who worked on
the > case said the transfers stunned investigators.
>
> ``You never have a situation where everybody gets transferred,''
> said the former official, who asked not to be identified. ``That
> just blew the possibility of having video surveillance. I still
> remember we were all pretty disappointed.''
>
> Philadelphia police officials said the incident is being examined
by > the joint city-federal task force that has been probing police
> corruption for the last five years. They would not elaborate. >
> Asked about the case yesterday, Police Commissioner Richard Neal,
> Williams' successor, said: ``I can't respond to why Willie
Williams > transferred somebody.'' In an earlier interview, Neal
said he could > not comment because the matter was under
investigation.
>
> The four officers targeted for the 1988 sting came under
suspicion > because of information supplied by Officer John
``Jack'' Baird, who > would later become a key figure in the 39th
District scandal. Baird > pleaded guilty last year to beating,
framing and robbing civilians > and was sentenced Monday to 13
years in federal prison.
>
> Confidential EAD documents released by the city in civil lawsuits
> over police misconduct show that long before he was implicated
in > the city-federal probe, Baird was an informant and occasional
> undercover operative for EAD.
>
> In one 1988 case, Baird helped convict a drug dealer who had
tried > to bribe him and an undercover EAD officer. Baird was
publicly > praised by an assistant district attorney for his role
in the case. >
> Fred Westerman, a retired EAD sergeant now living in Florida,
said > in a recent interview that Baird approached the anti-
corruption unit > in April 1988 with potentially incriminating
information about > several members of the Major Crimes Unit. >
> Westerman said he was skeptical of Baird at first. Though Baird
had > not yet been charged with corruption, he was facing dismissal
from > the force for vandalizing the cars of his ex-wife and
several of her > relatives. But, Westerman said, Baird appeared to
have good > information. Baird told EAD investigators that police
had taken up > to $50,000 from the North Philadelphia home of
Gregory Tutt on March > 22, 1988. They turned in only $7,220,
police records show. Tutt, a > one-time boxer who police say was
involved in the Junior Black > Mafia, was later slain by rival drug
dealers.
>
> With Baird's help, EAD began gathering information on Officer
Leslie > Gunter, who participated in the raid on Tutt's home in the
1500 > block of West Cayuga Street.
>
> Outfitted with a tiny, hidden, Swiss-made Narga tape recorder,
Baird > secretly recorded a conversation with Gunter on May 12,
1988. Baird > talked about raiding the home of another drug suspect
-- and > complained about not getting any of the money stolen from
Tutt's > house.
>
> Baird told Gunter that he did not intend to let that happen
again, > according to a transcript of the conversation included in
an EAD > case report.
>
> ``We don't want no surprises like Cayuga Street,'' Baird said.
``We > want to whack the . . . money up in the house, and then
we're out of > there . . . So, like, the lieutenant's not going to
grab all the > money and disappear.''
>
> Later in the conversation, Gunter said that ``if there is any
whack, > you'll be calling the whack.''
>
> In a recent interview, Gunter, now a University of Pennsylvania
> security officer, rejected Baird's allegations that officers
stole > money found in Tutt's house.
>
> ``I don't know what Baird is talking about,'' said Gunter, who
said > he received numerous commendations while on the Philadelphia
force. > ``Whatever Baird says has to be taken with a grain of
salt. Anything > he says is tainted.''
>
> When told that Baird's tape recorder had picked him up talking
about > how to ``whack'' money, Gunter said he had no recollection
of the > conversation. He said that if he had made comments about
money, they > were misinterpreted by EAD investigators.
>
> Gunter said police officials never confronted him with evidence
of > misconduct. ``If that were true, it seems like the Police
Department > would say something to me,'' he said. ``I don't
recall'' Baird > ``saying anything like that.''
>
> In a written summary of the Baird-Gunter conversation included
in > the EAD case report, Joseph Murphy, then a corporal in the >
anti-corruption unit, wrote that ``the officers discussed stealing
> money from these locations and splitting it up.''
>
> Westerman, the former sergeant, said the tape recording ``showed
> some form of intent,'' but that investigators would need more >
evidence.
>
> So a trap was laid.
>
> The four officers were to be lured to a motel room on Oct. 13,
1988. > EAD officials planned to leak them a phony tip that they
would find > drug money there. A stack of cash would be left in
plain sight. A > concealed camera would capture everything. > >
On Oct. 12, Commissioner Williams issued an order, transmitted to
> police districts by teletype at 4:42 p.m., saying that 11
officers > had been transferred to new assignments, effective
immediately. > Among them were Gunter and the three other officers
(one has since > retired; the two others are still on the force).
>
> Gunter said that he, too, was baffled by his sudden transfer from
> the Major Crimes Unit. He said he thought it was ``something a
> little strange.''
> Inquirer staff writers Thomas J. Gibbons Jr. and Jeff Gammage >
contributed to this article.
====================
ofr...@hotmail.com
>
> [The Philadelphia Inquirer] Page
One >
Thursday, April 18,
1996 >
> Lawyers for victims say the documents could establish a pattern
of corruption. Snippets have been made public. >
By Joseph A. Slobodzian
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
>
> want to keep secret, describe 658 city police-corruption
> investigations dating back 12 years.
>
> ``Police officer is a drug dealer and frequents drug locations,''
> reads the description of one open case from this year.
>
> ``Police officers are selling heroin,'' says another file. > >
And from the 1995 case files: ``Police officer perjuring himself
> during a deposition. . . . Police officer taking bribes from a
> speakeasy.''
>
> These summaries catalogue the case files of the Police
Department's > most secretive anti-corruption unit, the Ethics
Accountability > Division. The files have become the latest
battleground between > lawyers for the city and those representing
victims of police > corruption.
>
> Lawyers for the victims want the entire contents of the files
opened > in order to prove the city has done little to stifle
police > misconduct and has therefore knowingly allowed ``a pattern
and > practice'' of corruption.
>
> Lawyers for the city yesterday filed a motion asking that the
files > be sealed, citing the need to protect sources, shield
innocent > officers and preserve the integrity of ongoing
investigations. >
> Yet in trying to keep the files secret, the department supplied
> spare synopses that afford a rare glimpse into its most closely
> guarded anti-corruption activities.
>
> The EAD summaries show that:
> [ * ] There are more than 161 active investigations into alleged
> corruption.
> [ * ] More than a third of all the EAD investigations since the
unit > was founded in 1984 -- 236 cases -- have involved alleged
police > involvement with drugs.
> [ * ] The drug investigations centered on police allegedly
selling > narcotics, using drugs, stealing from pushers or simply
associating > with known dealers.
> Police Commissioner Richard Neal said the list represents every
EAD > investigation of a police officer, regardless of the quality
of the > evidence or its source.
>
> ``What you have there is a list of allegations,'' he said.
``People > do call in, and we conduct investigations regarding that
> information. In many instances that information that is provided
may > not be substantiated.''
>
> One veteran civil rights lawyer said the files could be a
municipal > nightmare.
>
> ``These could be the police Watergate files: What did they know,
and > when did they know it?'' said the lawyer, who asked not to
be > identified. One of the most startling disclosures in the
city's > motion divulges that John ``Jack'' Baird, who was
sentenced this > week to 13 years in prison on federal corruption
charges, was at one > time working both sides of the legal fence.
>
> He wore a wire for EAD in 1988 when he volunteered to help nail
the > dirty officer. Yet, while working for EAD, he was also
beating up > and framing citizens from the 39th District.
>
> The EAD documents do not make clear whether EAD officials knew
of > Baird's 39th District illegal activities at the time he was
> cooperating with them, or whether they were working with Baird
> because they knew he had an inside line to police corruption. >
> Legal sources say disclosure of the EAD information -- a rare >
occurrence -- would be a windfall for the plaintiffs in 13 federal
> civil rights suits growing from the 39th District scandal. > >
They say the files might disclose more information about the >
officers being sued, that they could demonstrate how city and
police > officials responded -- or failed to respond -- to reports
of > corruption among the city's 6,000-member police force. > >
City officials say they have already given lawyers involved in the
> suits the EAD files for the officers involved in those cases as
well > as 85,000 other documents.
>
> ``The massive disclosure of all EAD files on misconduct cases
would > paralyze the anti-corruption efforts of the police
department at a > time when the eradication of police corruption
is of paramount > public importance,'' said the motion filed
yesterday in U.S. > District Court by Jeffrey M. Scott, the deputy
city solicitor in > charge of the Civil Rights Division.
>
> Alan L. Yatvin, who is acting as the liaison for the group of >
lawyers representing individuals wrongly arrested or imprisoned >
because of the actions of a group of 39th District officers, >
declined to comment on the city move for a protection order. > >
It was an earlier motion by Yatvin and the plaintiffs' attorneys
to > compel release of the EAD files that triggered the city's
motion. >
> The motion contends Yatvin and the other plaintiffs' attorneys
> cannot be trusted with such confidential information and, as an
> example, includes part of an EAD file on Baird that the city says
> the plaintiffs leaked to Inquirer reporter Mark Fazlollah. > >
The Baird file starts with his telephone call to the EAD on April
8, > 1988, to discuss police corruption and ends Oct. 14, 1988,
after the > probe of four officers fingered by Baird collapsed when
they were > suddenly transferred to different police districts. >
> The document says Baird also wore a hidden tape recorder on
several > occasions while he was stalking allegedly corrupt police
for the > EAD.
>
> One source familiar with the file said Baird apparently knew he
was > the subject of a criminal investigation and decided to try
to avoid > prosecution by making himself invaluable to EAD by
naming other > corrupt officers.
>
> Baird, 41, and four others indicted with him in February 1995 on
> federal conspiracy and criminal civil rights charges, were
sentenced > to prison Monday in a federal corruption probe that has
so far > resulted in the prosecution of 10 current and former
officers. >
> Unlike the police Internal Affairs Division, which investigates
> public complaints against police officers and makes its findings
> available to the public, the EAD has always operated secretly.
EAD > findings are not available to rank-and-file police or to the
public, > and the unit reports directly to a deputy police
commissioner who > reports directly to Neal. ``These files contain
all sorts of > information,'' said Jeffrey M. Lindy, a lawyer who
represents a 39th > District officer who has been named in some
documents involving the > corruption scandal but who Lindy says is
not a target of the probe. >
> ``These files can contain interview notes from when you were
hired, > psychological writeups, somebody's marital problems -- all
sorts of > things that are inherently very personal and have
nothing to do with > the job,'' Lindy said.
>
> Inquirer staff writer Jeff Gammage contributed to this article.
========================
ofr...@hotmail.com
April 18, DAILY NEWS
1996 >
>
City fights disclosure of cop files
>
by Jim Smith
Daily News Staff Writer
>
> City lawyers say the Police Department's own anti-corruption
efforts > would be ``paralyzed'' by public disclosure and press
leaks of > confidential investigative files covering more than a
decade. >
> And that's why they oppose a request by private attorneys for all
> files from the department's Ethics Accountability Division back
to > 1984.
>
> The request goes beyond files pertaining to the former 39th
District > officers who pleaded guilty to robbing and violating the
civil > rights of dozens of suspected drug dealers.
>
> Although the private lawyers' civil rights complaints involve
only > misconduct in the 39th District, they contend they need the
complete > files to pursue a claim that the city fails to
adequately > investigate police wrongdoing.
>
> The private attorneys represent more than 14 individuals who are
> suing the city and several former 39th District officers for
alleged > civil rights violations.
>
> City lawyers say reporters are getting information from secret
> Ethics Accountability Division files that the city had
voluntarily > disclosed to private attorneys.
>
> The city lawyers also noted that targets of investigations would
be > ``unfairly stigmatized'' since the many files were closed
without > charges being filed, and contain ``unproven
allegations.'' >
> If the court requires production of all files, the city says it
> needs a ``protective order'' to prevent the private attorneys,
their > clients and anyone else from leaking their contents to the
media. >
> Deputy City Solicitor Jeffrey M. Scott and Assistant City
Solicitor > Marcia Berman said the secret files contained the names
of > informants and police officers who have told of police
corruption, > and of methods such as electronic surveillance and
``sting'' > operations that have been used by investigators to
gather evidence > against corrupt cops.
>
> Public disclosure of such sensitive information ``would paralyze
the > anti-corruption efforts of the Police Department at a time
when the > eradication of police corruption is of paramount public
> importance,'' city lawyers told U.S. District Judge Stewart
Dalzell > in a memorandum.
>
> In a sworn statement filed with the court, Capt. Albert Harris,
the > commander of the Ethics Accountability Division, wrote, ``The
> protection of confidential information and police officers who
> report corruption is of the highest concern.''
>
> Nine Ethics Accountability Division investigations have been
opened > this year and are still active, and there are many cases
still open > from earlier years, the city lawyers noted.
>
> The city lawyers provided thumbnail descriptions of hundreds of
the > investigative files.
>
> The more recent allegations include taking money to protect drug
> corners, visiting drug houses, selling heroin, moonlighting as
> security guards, living out of state, working for a bookmaker,
> disclosing computer information, taking money from gypsies, lying
> during a deposition, and driving prostitutes in a ``call-girl''
> operation.
ofr...@hotmail.com
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bwit...@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Re: Philly Cops News
Posted: Ronnie Dadone
http://www2.phillynews.com/inquirer/96/Apr/19/front_page/COPS19.htm
>
> [The Philadelphia Inquirer] Page
One >
Friday, April 19,
1996 >
Williams denies being told of sting
> The ex-police chief had transferred four officers, foiling a
1988 probe.
>
By Mark Fazlollah
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
>
> Former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Willie L. Williams
yesterday > denied any knowledge of a 1988 anti-corruption sting
that collapsed > when he transferred the four targeted officers 24
hours before the > trap was to be sprung.
>
> Williams, now chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, said
that > if he had known a sting was planned, he never would have
authorized > the transfers of four members of the police Major
Crimes Unit on > Oct. 12, 1988. The transfers effectively killed
the investigation. >
> ``I have no knowledge whatsoever of ever being informed by the
then > first deputy of the Philadelphia Police Department or other
senior > police officials of a pending sting or other actions on
or about > 10-13-88. If I had been so informed of such a plan, no
movement of > the targeted personnel would have been made,''
Williams said in a > statement.
>
> ``I find the Philadelphia Inquirer's innuendos, including the >
headline of 4-18-96, an example of reckless journalism,'' the >
statement said.
>
> The Inquirer reported yesterday that the department planned to
lure > the officers into a motel room to tempt them into stealing
a pile of > cash that had been placed there.
>
> The sting, planned by the department's Ethics Accountability >
Division, was called off after Williams moved all four to street
> patrols in districts around the city.
>
> None of the four was ever charged with misconduct.
>
> The FBI-police task force began investigating the transfers last
> year after two corrupt 39th District officers -- Steven Brown and
> John Baird -- provided them with details of the 1988 case. > >
Two former EAD officials said Williams was informed in advance of
> the planned sting and did not tell EAD before the four officers
were > transferred.
>
> Ranking police officials say it would be highly unusual for a >
commissioner not to be informed about a planned sting, especially
an > operation in which an officer wore a wire to ensnare another
> officer, as was the case in this EAD investigation.
>
> The deputy commissioner to whom Williams' statement referred was
> Robert F. Armstrong, who died in February 1994 of a brain tumor.
> Armstrong served as the department's first deputy from 1986 to
1989. > In the 1988 investigation, EAD tape-recorded conversations
between > Baird and Officer Leslie Gunter, then with the Major
Crimes Unit. >
> Baird, who this week was sentenced to 13 years in prison on
federal > corruption charges, had volunteered to help EAD ferret
out crooked > officers in 1988. Sources say Baird volunteered his
services in > order to prevent the department from firing him after
he had > vandalized his wife's property.
>
> During his work with EAD, Baird told investigators that Gunter
was > involved in a raid in which money was stolen from a suspected
drug > dealer.
>
> In an interview last month, Gunter denied that he was involved
in > wrongdoing. He said EAD's 1988 investigation was ``tainted''
because > information came from Baird, an acknowledged perjurer and
thief. >
> In his statement, Williams said he was ``open and eager to >
participate in any discussion about this issue should the >
appropriate authorities in Philadelphia ever decide to request my
> assistance.''
>
> For the last month, The Inquirer has repeatedly requested
interviews > with Williams about the 1988 case and sent him a copy
of EAD's > detailed summary of its investigation. Through a
spokeswoman, > Williams has declined to discuss the case.
>
> Williams' spokesman said that no further statements would be
issued > about the 1988 investigation, and that Williams would not
agree to > an interview.
>
> Williams' boss, Los Angeles Police Commission President Deirde
Hill, > said in a statement yesterday that it ``would be premature
and > inappropriate for the board to comment at this time'' because
of the > current investigation.
>
> Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Neal also has said he
could > not comment because of the investigation.
>
> Fraternal Order of Police president Richard Costello, meanwhile,
> called for federal investigators to ferret out why Williams >
transferred the officers.
>
> Costello said he believed the transfers were ``a case of clear-
cut > obstruction.'' He said the focus of the investigation should
shift > from street-level cops to the leadership of the department.
>
> ``Corruption doesn't start at the street level,'' Costello said.
> ``Let's follow the corruption probe at the top.''
>
> The union president also questioned why both the U.S. Attorney's
> Office and the District Attorney's Office apparently had ignored
the > case for years, though prosecutors had worked closely with
the 1988 > investigation until it collapsed.
>
> ``When a corruption investigation reaches to a political
> appointment,'' Costello said, ``it disappears. . . . Here's a
case > where something happened in 1988 and nothing was done.'' >
> U.S. Attorney Michael R. Stiles could not be reached for comment
> yesterday.
>
> District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham's spokesman said she would not
> comment on any case that was under investigation.
ofr...@hotmail.com
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bwit...@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
ofr...@hotmail.com
>
> [The Philadelphia Inquirer] City &
Region >
1996 >
Flawed reviews give top ratings to rogues
> The weak job-evaluation system in the Philadelphia Police
Department > feeds corruption, experts say. It allows bad
officers to go unchecked.
>
By Mark Fazlollah
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
>
> officers it found had committed robbery, rape, extortion, drug
> trafficking and other offenses. One was convicted of murder. >
> But almost until the moment it fired them, the department gave
those > officers top performance ratings -- including the murderer.
>
> Gene Lomazoff, a sergeant in the 35th Police District in Olney,
was > convicted of pulling over motorists for traffic infractions,
then > shaking them down for cash between November 1990 and June
1993. He > was sentenced last year to seven years in prison. > >
Throughout the period when he was abusing his badge, Lomazoff got
> glowing job evaluations from his superiors.
>
> In 1990, Lt. Joseph Kelly of the 17th District received a perfect
> rating. That same year, he and his wife ran a high-priced >
prostitution ring in Center City. Both later pleaded guilty. > >
Officer Terri Joell Harper, also of the 17th District, was a model
> officer, to judge from her performance ratings. In 1992, she
pleaded > guilty to second-degree murder in the death of a Northern
Liberties > man whom she had been robbing.
>
> Of the 82 officers fired during the five years ending Jan. 1,
1995, > 79 consistently received top ratings until the time they
were > dismissed, city records show.
>
> Experts on police conduct blame a flawed system that places
little > emphasis on honest appraisals and gives supervisors little
training > or motivation to do the job right. It is a system, they
say, that > lets rogue cops operate unchecked, often for many
years.
>
> ``It is a very detrimental system,'' said Thomas Seamon, a former
> Philadelphia deputy police commissioner who is head of the >
University of Pennsylvania security force. ``Certainly there needs
> to be a more viable system.''
>
> Job evaluations are done at varying intervals, usually at least
once > a year. Officers are reviewed by their immediate superiors
and given > a rating of satisfactory or unsatisfactory. There are
no other > choices. The scores are often accompanied by glowing
written > tributes.
>
> The evaluations are supposed to be confidential. The city has >
released some in response to civil lawsuits alleging police >
misconduct. Additional information was obtained through city >
personnel records. The material could prove costly to taxpayers >
because it may aid plaintiffs' lawyers in their efforts to show
that > the department does not police itself.
>
> John Baird, the former 39th District officer at the center of the
> latest corruption scandal, got perfect job ratings for 14 years -
- a > period during which he robbed suspects, planted drugs and
gave > perjured testimony at criminal trials.
>
> In Baird's annual evaluation in 1988, his boss wrote that he had
> ``demonstrated dedication, integrity, as well as a willingness
to > perform his duties without any supervision necessary.'' > >
The Police Department did not respond to requests for comment on
the > evaluation system. The City Solicitor's Office said officials
would > not discuss the issue because it was part of civil-rights
lawsuits > against the city.
>
> Superficial job reviews for police are a problem in many cities.
> There is even a name for it -- ``the halo effect.''
>
> Hubert Williams, president of the Police Foundation, a nonprofit
> research group in Washington, said supervisors routinely give
their > subordinates ``halos'' -- flawless performance ratings.
Sometimes, > Williams said, the halos stay in place up to the
moment an officer > is fired or jailed for misconduct.
>
> Milton Mollen, a former New York State Supreme Court judge who
> headed a task force on police corruption in New York City, said
an > ineffective rating system is a sign of weak supervision. His
task > force cited that as the major cause of police corruption in
New > York.
>
> ``Ratings, of course, are part of effective supervision,'' said
> Mollen, whose task force held hearings on corruption and
recommended > sweeping changes, many of which were implemented over
the last two > years.
>
> Seamon, the former deputy commissioner, said the lack of an >
effective rating system and police corruption ``are all
> interlocked.'' Seamon said the Philadelphia department's current
> evaluation system has not functioned properly since it was begun
> about 15 years ago.
>
> Seamon, who left the force last year after 26 years, estimated
that > 98 percent of the city's 6,000 officers receive sterling
ratings. He > said most supervisors simply were unwilling to give
an officer an > unsatisfactory rating.
>
> Most of the ratings are done by sergeants, the direct supervisors
> for the line officers. Seamon said the department gives sergeants
> little training in how to do ratings, or in their importance. >
> ``A lot of sergeants can't separate themselves from being one of
the > boys,'' said Seamon.
>
> Before the current system was implemented, the department had a
more > sophisticated program with five possible ratings. If
officers > received ratings of ``superior'' or ``exceptional,'' it
helped them > win promotions. Today, laudatory evaluations are so
common they have > little meaning.
>
> Seamon said the previous system was diluted during contract >
negotiations between the city and the Fraternal Order of Police.
>
> FOP spokesman Dale Wilcox said the union would not comment on >
performance ratings because the issue was part of its current >
contract talks with the city -- and was thus covered by a secrecy
> agreement between the two sides.
>
> At times, the rating system has weakened the city's position in
> lawsuits.
>
> Officer Rodney Hunt had perfect performance ratings until he was
> charged with first-degree murder in the off-duty slaying of Sean
> Wilson in a West Philadelphia bar in November 1990. Hunt was >
acquitted of the charge. Wilson's mother filed a civil suit against
> the city and got a $900,000 settlement.
>
> Attorney Teri B. Himebaugh, who represented Wilson's family, said
> the lack of an effective rating system made her case stronger,
> because it bolstered her contention that the department had
allowed > a ``pattern and practice'' of misconduct to persist. >
> Such a claim is key to prevailing under federal civil-rights
laws. >
> ``In civil-rights suits, that's what we call deliberate
indifference > and reckless disregard'' of civil rights, Himebaugh
said. >
> Civil liability isn't the only problem. The lack of rigorous job
> evaluations also makes it harder to get rid of bad cops.
>
> When officers are fired, the FOP routinely asks arbitrators to
> reinstate them -- and almost always cites the perfect performance
> ratings they received before they were discharged.
>
> An arbitrator ordered Hunt restored to the force and granted him
> $100,000 in back pay. He now works in the Second District. > >
Baird, the former 39th District officer, was trying to get back on
> the force until the day in 1994 when the FBI secretly recorded
him > paying an informant to lie for him at an arbitration
proceeding. >
> Other cities have begun to develop more rigorous rating systems
to > screen problem officers.
>
> Los Angeles attorney Merrick Bobb, who was counsel to two >
commissions that investigated abuse among Los Angeles police and
> sheriff's officers, said a pass-fail system like Philadelphia's
is > inherently weak.
>
> Bobb said the Los Angeles police union initially resisted changes
in > that city's rating system but agreed to accept a more
sophisticated > one in exchange for pay raises.
>
> William Geller, associate director of the Police Executive
Research > Forum in Washington, said cities must stop blaming
corruption on ``a > few bad apples.''
>
> ``We have to see these as not solely individual officers'
problems, > but as systemic problems,'' he said. ``Bad systems
cause people to > perform in ways we wouldn't want.''
ofr...@hotmail.com
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bwit...@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Re: Philly Cops News
Posted: Ronnie Dadone
http://www2.phillynews.com/inquirer/96/Apr/24/front_page/COPS24.htm
>
> [The Philadelphia Inquirer] Page
One >
> Wednesday, April 24,
1996 >
> U.S. and city reject cases of Pa. drug unit
> Dozens of suspects have gone free since doubts were raised about
the > credibility of the task force here. Police-corruption
investigators > are now involved.
>
> By Mark Fazlollah
> INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
>
> ?1996, The Philadelphia Inquirer
> In a move that already has let dozens of drug suspects walk free
> without standing trial, city and federal prosecutors are refusing
to > go forward with drug cases prepared by the state attorney
general's > narcotics task force in Philadelphia.
>
> The U.S. Attorney's Office stopped accepting cases from the
attorney > general's Bureau of Narcotics Investigation several
months ago after > defense lawyers raised doubts about the
credibility of BNI agents > and after a federal judge said he found
``a lot of aspects'' of one > BNI case ``totally incredible.''
>
> The District Attorney's Office told Philadelphia police two weeks
> ago that it, too, would no longer prosecute cases from the BNI
> office in Southwest Philadelphia. The decision prompted the
Police > Department to withdraw five officers it had lent to the
task force. >
> A city-FBI team that has been investigating police corruption in
> Philadelphia has now turned its attention to the BNI as well and
has > been interviewing drug suspects arrested by the state agents,
law > enforcement officials said.
>
> The collapse of confidence in the BNI is part of a nationwide >
pattern in which the veracity of police has increasingly been
called > into question by judges, juries and the public. In
Philadelphia, > misconduct by officers in the 39th Police District
has led judges to > overturn 116 criminal convictions.
>
> The BNI works with state police, and until recently worked with
city > police, on major drug cases in Philadelphia and the city's
suburbs > in Pennsylvania. Since 1990, BNI agents have reported
seizing 1,000 > pounds of cocaine, 73 pounds of crack, and $13
million in cash and > assets.
>
> Allegations about the task force's office at 7800 Essington Ave.
> center on a pattern of cases in which BNI agents said they
arrested > alleged drug traffickers after seeing narcotics lying
in plain view. > Defense lawyers said the agents searched their
clients without > probable cause and fabricated their accounts of
the arrests. >
> Concerns were further heightened when a BNI agent, in recent
court > testimony, admitted that he had made false statements on
a search > warrant in a 1994 drug arrest.
>
> State Attorney General Thomas W. Corbett Jr., who took office in
> October, confirmed yesterday that city and federal prosecutors
> wanted no part of BNI cases from the Essington Avenue office. In
an > interview, Corbett said he planned a shakeup of the task force
and > would transfer some of the 25 agents.
>
> Corbett said he was reviewing complaints against the BNI that
date > back ``many years.'' He said he could not provide any
details of the > allegations.
>
> ``Almost from the point that I came in, we had heard complaints
> about the Essington Avenue office from the U.S. attorney and the
> D.A.'s Office,'' he said. ``We are taking every action we can.''
>
> Corbett said the problems in the BNI could lead to a cascade of
> challenges to drug convictions, similar to what has happened in
the > 39th Police District. Corbett said that any lawyer who had
> represented someone convicted on the basis of BNI evidence would
now > be ``obligated'' to seek reversals.
>
> District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham and U.S. Attorney Michael
Stiles > declined to comment on why they had stopped handling BNI
cases. >
> In recent months, dozens of BNI cases have been jettisoned by >
prosecutors unwilling to proceed with what they regarded as suspect
> evidence.
>
> Philadelphia lawyer Louis T. Savino Jr. said yesterday that in
the > last week alone, the District Attorney's Office had dropped
charges > against four accused drug dealers arrested by BNI agents.
>
> Savino said that in one case, three Dominican men were allegedly
> caught in Philadelphia with three ounces of crack cocaine and >
charged with drug trafficking. All three were released after the
> District Attorney's Office refused to present evidence against
them > at a court hearing.
>
> ``It made my job easier. I don't know about the general public,''
> Savino said. ``They're just letting people skate. . . . These are
> allegations of significant amounts of drugs.''
>
> In another recent case, a Common Pleas Court judge dismissed
charges > against a man allegedly caught with three pounds of
cocaine. Again, > prosecutors said they would not present evidence.
They provided no > explanation.
>
> The U.S. Attorney's Office stopped prosecuting BNI cases after
> defense lawyers pointed to a pattern of drug arrests in which the
> state agents reported finding incriminating evidence in identical
> circumstances.
>
> In those cases, BNI agents arrested suspects after supposedly >
receiving information from confidential informants. Typically, the
> agents said they searched suspects' cars and made arrests after
> seeing packages of cocaine or heroin in plain sight, such as on
a > car seat.
>
> Isla A. Fruchter, a Center City lawyer, said she found 11 drug
cases > in which a BNI agent described the same set of
circumstances > surrounding the arrests.
>
> ``It's exactly the same background,'' Fruchter said. ``We think
> there's a problem.''
>
> At a May 17 postconviction hearing for convicted drug dealer
Miguel > Tapia, U.S. District Judge John P. Fullam sharply
questioned a BNI > agent's account of how Tapia was arrested. The
agent had testified > that he saw drugs in Tapia's car across the
street from a drug > house.
>
> ``I find it almost inconceivable,'' Fullam said, ``that in what
is > alleged to be a store which was a hotbed for narcotics
trafficking, > that anyone would park a car, unlocked, catercorner
across an > intersection, with $20,000 worth of drugs in plain
view.
>
> ``I find a lot of aspects of this case totally incredible and not
> understandable,'' the judge said.
>
> Fullam is weighing a motion by Tapia's lawyer to toss out the >
conviction and grant his client a new trial.
>
> The allegations about the BNI bear striking similarities to the
> unfolding 39th District scandal, in which rogue officers robbed
and > planted evidence on drug suspects, falsified police reports,
and > gave perjured testimony that helped send the suspects to
prison. Six > former officers have pleaded guilty and been sent to
federal prison. > Four others are awaiting trial.
>
> George Craig, a deputy Philadelphia police commissioner, said in
an > interview that the Police Department had halted all
cooperation with > the BNI as of Friday because the District
Attorney's Office told him > that BNI cases would not be
prosecuted.
>
> Craig said five Philadelphia officers who were on loan to the BNI
> had been reassigned to the department's Highway Patrol. He said
> there were no allegations of wrongdoing against those officers.
>
> A state police spokesman, Charles Tocci, said several state
police > agents still were working with the BNI. Tocci said the
agents try to > get around prosecutors' misgivings by omitting any
reference to the > BNI's Essington Avenue address in their arrest
reports.
>
> Tocci said an assistant Philadelphia district attorney threw out
a > state police case last week solely because the arrest report
listed > the Essington Avenue address. He said the state police
officers > working with the BNI now list the address of the state
police's > Belmont Avenue barracks on their reports.
>
> Corbett was critical yesterday of the decision to stop
prosecuting > BNI cases, saying prosecutors were being
indiscriminate. Other law > enforcement officials, who asked not
to be named, expressed the same > sentiment.
>
> ``Let's look at this a little more intelligently,'' Corbett said.
> ``This broad-brush approach is not appropriate. . . . To cut them
> off all of a sudden doesn't make sense.''
> Inquirer staff writers Thomas Gibbons and Richard Jones
contributed > to this article.
ofr...@hotmail.com
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bwit...@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: More PA Cases Dropped
Posted: Ronnie Dadone
http://www2.phillynews.com/daily_news/96/May/01/local/DROP01.htm
>
Local > [Philadelphia Online] THE PHILADELPHIA
Wednesday, May 1, > DAILY NEWS
>
1996 >
>
> DA considers the source: Drug cases dropped
>
> by Dave Racher
> Daily News Staff Writer
>
> For the second straight day, the district attorney's office has
> dropped drug charges against a man arrested by cops working with
the > state attorney general's drug task force.
>
> Yesterday, Common Pleas Judge Murray C. Goldman granted a request
by > the district attorney's office to drop drug charges against
Karl > Hawkins, 30, of Sterner Street near 9th.
>
> Hawkins was accused of possessing 100 packets of crack, worth
about > $2,000, after being chased into a house on Sterner Street
near 9th, > on Aug. 7, 1994.
>
> When Goldman asked Assistant District Attorney Harry Speath why
he > was dropping charges, the prosecutor said it was because the
case > was related to the state's drug task force.
>
> Goldman didn't ask for a futher explanation, commenting, ``Well,
> your credibility is fine with me.''
>
> Defense lawyer James Lyons praised the DA's office for ``seeking
> justice and not a conviction'' in a retrial of the case.
>
> Lyons pointed out that last year, a jury heard the case and
couldn't > agree on a verdict.
>
> He said people inside the house testified that Hawkins was not
> chased into the house, but was sitting on a couch when police >
entered without a warrant and seized drugs.
>
> On Monday, the charges against two men allegedly arrested in >
possession of $80,000 were withdrawn by the DA's office. Agents of
> the state task force were in on that arrest.
>
> Sources in the DA's office said a probe of drug arrests made by
> state agents is underway to detemine whether they bypassed >
regulations by making seizures without warrants.
>
> Federal authorities are also said to be investigating the unit
as > part of an on-going probe of police corruption that began
after > officers of the 39th District were arrested for wrongdoing.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
ofr...@hotmail.com
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bwit...@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: PA State Narcs Lying?
Posted: Ronnie Dadone
Subject: PA Drug Agents Lied
http://www2.phillynews.com/daily_news/96/May/04/local/BNII04.htm
>
Local > [Philadelphia Online] THE PHILADELPHIA
Saturday, May 4, > DAILY NEWS
>
1996 >
>
> Pa. drug agents targeted
> Defense lawyer cites repeated lies in court about city cases
> by Jim Smith, Daily News Staff Writer
>
> A defense attorney claims there are compelling reasons to believe
as > many as seven members of a state narcotics unit have been
lying in > court in recent years about how they came to search and
arrest > Philadelphia drug suspects.
>
> In a motion filed in federal court, defense attorney Guy Sciolla
is > seeking to overturn the conviction of Miguel Tapia, 26,
formerly of > Fisher Street near 15th, who was jailed for 63 months
for > trafficking in 2.2 pounds of cocaine.
>
> Assistant U.S. Attorney Joel Goldstein, who prosecuted Tapia,
said > he could not comment on the motion.
>
> The seven agents named in the motion have been assigned in recent
> years to the Pennsylvania Bureau of Narcotics Investigations,
also > known as BNI, a 25-agent unit headquartered in Southwest
> Philadelphia.
>
> Some 16 state prosecutions and one federal prosecution already
have > been scrapped as the result of questionable conduct on the
part of > the BNI agents, Sciolla said.
>
> Sciolla also noted in his motion that the Philadelphia district
> attorney's office and the U.S. attorney's office recently stopped
> prosecuting cases that the unit develops.
>
> A spokesman for state Attorney General Tom Corbett yesterday said
> that Corbett has been meeting with federal and local prosecutors
to > resolve any problems with the unit.
>
> Corbett also is conducting an internal investigation ``to find
out > what changes need to be made,'' the spokesman, Jack Lewis,
said. >
> Corbett ``feels the office, overall, has been doing good work.
He's > disturbed that the district attorney and the U.S. attorney
are not > taking cases,'' Lewis said.
>
> Sciolla, meanwhile, contends that BNI agents working in
Philadelphia > have a long history of concocting ``probable cause''
to search and > arrest suspects, then lying in court when
questioned about their > reasons for making arrests.
>
> In seeking a hearing, Sciolla cited in his motion ``the
background > and ongoing uncertainties of BNI investigators, the
remarkable and > repeated fact patterns of BNI arrest reports, the
findings of > various judges, of, at the least, testimonial
inconsistencies and > contradictions, and at the worst, outright
fraud and deceit.'' >
> Sciolla has succeeded once before in getting what seemed like an
> airtight federal drug case tossed out based on alleged wrongdoing
by > BNI agents.
>
> In September 1994, U.S. District Judge Anita B. Brody dismissed
an > indictment against two reputed heroin traffickers, but not
before > both men spent a year in jail awaiting trial.
>
> In the 1994 case, BNI agents claimed they saw heroin packets
spill > from a paper bag that one suspect tossed into a car before
fleeing > into the building, where the pursuing agents found even
more drugs. >
> Witness accounts, however, indicated that the two suspects were
> arrested some distance from the apartment, and that the agents
> didn't chase anyone into the apartment but entered it on their
own. >
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
----->
> [---]
ofr...@hotmail.com
From: Matthew Gaylor
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
TO: Matthew Gaylor
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: free...@coil.com
BCC: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Philadelphia Ex-Cops Call Offenses Routine
ACLU News
*From Prison, Ex-Cops Call Offenses Routine*
PHILADELPHIA -- In a front-page copywritten report, The Philadelphia
Inquirer
on Sunday detailed the stories of three police officers involved in the
biggest police scandal in Philadelphia's history.
All three officers readily admit that they committed serious misdeeds in
stealing an estimated $100,000 from suspected drug dealers. the Inquirer
said. But they also say that much of their illegal activity -- including
perjury and fabricating evidence -- was part of the system that police
everywhere use in the war on drugs.
"Its the system, they say -- they only did what they believed their
commanders, politicians and yes -- you the public wanted," Inquirer
reporter
Mark Fazlollah wrote. He quoted one of the former officers, John Baird:
"We
didn't own and operate the system. We didn't invent it. We were just
some of
the many thousands of custodians. We inherited it."
The ex-officers made a series of serious allegations, the Inquirer said,
including:
-- Hundreds of arrests were "bad." Baird told the Inquirer that he never
saw
a legal drug arrest.
-- Groups of black youths hanging out on corners were routinely searched
illegally. When drugs were found, the Inquirer said, police reports were
fabricated to indicate that a drug sale had been witnessed.
The Inquirer said that the ex-officers allegations are likely to add
fuel to
charges by civil rights lawyers that the Police Department has failed to
police itself.
David Rudovsky, a lawyer who is leading negotiations between city
officials
and civil rights groups -- and a member of the ACLU National Board --
told
the Inquirer that what the ex-officers have said "reflects a pattern
that we
have seen independently."
Rudovsky told the Inquirer that what the ex-officers said "rings true."
"It's not only individual officers," he said. "It was a department that
was
indifferent to those facts."
The Philadelphia Inquirer can be found on the Web at
http://www.phillynews.com/inq/front_page/
----------------------------------------------------------------
For general information about the ACLU, write to in...@aclu.org
###
ofr...@hotmail.com
>
> corrupt newsgroup line fixed
>
> In article <3984A6...@hotmail.com>,
> ofr...@hotmail.com <ofr...@hotmail.com> posted without thought:
>
> [nothing relevant to the western states]
>
> Does rr.com condone your forging of a hotmail address when posting?
FBI contacted.
You fucked with the wrong man.
> [Nuclear war] ... may not be desirable.
> -- Edwin Meese III
Jafo
alt.law-enforcement,alt.thebird.copwatch,nyc.general,alt.california.
Is Philadephia still in Pennsylvania?
Or did they move it?
--
Jafo http://www.cheetah.net/jafo