The Philly Rogue Cops Case: The Pizza Connection

Veteran crime reporter Ralph Cipriano is covering the federal trial of six Philadelphia police officers accused of corruption for bigtrial.net.

On cross-examination, Assistant U.S. Attorney Maureen McCartney asked former Officer Michael Spicer (seen in the above photo) about an allegation contained in "Episode #4" of the government's indictment of the rogue cops.

On Nov. 26, 2007, the indictment charged, while hanging out at drug dealer Michael Cascioli's 19th floor apartment on City Line Avenue, Officers Spicer, Linwood Norman, Perry Betts and Jeffrey Walker allegedly took money from the drug dealer's nightstand and "used it to purchase pizza" for the four cops "without [Cascioli's] permission."

"That would have been a staple of our diet," Spicer conceded with a half-smile from the witness stand when asked about the pizza.

Sensing weakness, the prosecutor pressed in for the kill. Who bought the pizza, she wanted to know.

"I don't know," Spicer replied. "I don't know who paid."

It was exchanges like this during the three-hour cross-examination of Spicer, the only one of six defendants to take the stand, that had the defense camp smiling and laughing when it was all over.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2015/05/did-rogue-cops-charge-pizza-to-drug.html#more

Defense To Rely On Top Cops To Refute Drug Dealers

Veteran crime reporter Ralph Cipriano is covering the Philly Rogue Cops trial for bigtrial.net.

It took four weeks for the government to finally run out of drug dealers.

 

After sending a parade of 16 drug dealers to the witness stand, the government this morning rested its case against six former narcotics officers accused of going rogue by allegedly  beating and robbing the suspects they busted.

 

The defense then began its case by calling FBI Agent Dennis Drum to the witness stand.

 

Defense Attorney Jack McMahon took Drum through a list of 15 superior officers and fellow officers in the case who supposedly were eyewitnesses to the various "episodes" of alleged police misconduct in the indictment. 

 

Drum testified that a dozen of the cops were interviewed by the feds between three and seven months after the defendants in the case were indicted on July 30, 2014. Two of the cops were never interviewed; a third refused to talk.

 

The defense strategy seems to be to call as many of these officers to the witness stand as possible to refute the allegations made by the drug dealers who testified on behalf of the government. The list of possible witnesses include a chief inspector, an inspector, a captain, a couple of lieutenants, a sergeant, a corporal and some fellow officers.

If the boys in blue stick together, this case is going to come down to the FBI, Jeffrey Walker and a bunch of drug dealers vs. the Philadelphia Police Department.

 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

 

http://www.bigtrial.net/2015/04/defense-to-rely-on-top-cops-to-refute.html#more 

The Philly Rogue Cops Case: Narcotics Cops Work In A Cesspool

Veteran crime reporter and author George Anastasia is covering the federal trial of the Philadelphia narcotics cops accused of corruption for bigtrial.net.

Spend all your time in a cesspool and you're going to smell.

That's the assessment of retired Philadelphia Police Captain Al DiGiacomo as he follows the ongoing corruption trial of six narcotics cops in U.S. District Court.

Now a professor of criminal justice at West Chester University, DiGiacomo, 65, has been watching the case unfold from his perch in academia. For the veteran cop the allegations are similar to those that surfaced in two earlier and infamous narcotics squad corruption investigations.

But whether the six defendants in the ongoing case end up disgraced and convicted like members of the Five Squad or the tainted cops of the 39th District is still a very much open question.

The prosecution is expected to rest its case in the four-week trial tomorrow at which point the defense will begin calling witnesses. While it's unlikely any of the defendants will take the stand, the defense has promised to call several top Police Department officials who knew of or who were on the scene for some of the "episodes" detailed in the racketeering indictment that was handed up two years ago.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2015/04/narcotics-cops-work-in-cesspool.html#more

"Ramshacked" At The Philly Rogue Cops Trial

Veteran crime reporter Ralph Cipriano is covering the federal trial of the Philadelphia narcotics cops for bigtrial.net.

As the prosecution in the rogue cops trial winds down its case, they're scraping the bottom of the barrel for witnesses.

One drug dealer on the witness stand today confessed that he had two different names.

Another drug dealer testifying on behalf of the government who was unsteady on his feet looked and smelled like he may have been drinking his favorite beverage again, Grey Goose Vodka.

Meanwhile, Judge Eduardo C. Robreno announced that the trial was moving much faster than expected, and that the prosecution would be winding down its case this week. As rumors swept the courtroom that one of the reasons why was that another unreliable prosecution witness was about to be ejected from the case.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2015/04/ramshacked-at-rogue-cops-trial.html#more

More Witnesses, More Stories Of Corruption, More Questions About Credibility In Philly Rogue Cops Case

Veteran crime reporter and author George Anastasia (seen in the above photo) is covering the so-called Philly rogue cops case for bigtrial.net.

They came dressed in black, waving their guns and hiding their faces behind ski masks.

They wanted to know where the drugs and money were and when he didn't tell them he said they threatened to take his five young children away from him.

He spent the night in a police lockup without being charged and then, he said, he was literally held hostage over the next five days in a hotel near the airport, forced to give up the names of drug dealers he knew and to set up buys so that they could be arrested.

That was the story, told through a Spanish interpreter, that Rodolfo Blanco told a federal jury today in the trial of six Philadelphia Police Department narcotics cops accused of stealing more than $500,000 in cash and drugs from targeted dealers in what Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey has called one of the worst cases of police corruption in the city's history.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2015/04/more-witnesses-more-stories-of.html#more

You can also read my Philadelphia Inquirer review of George Anastasia's Gotti's Rules via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2015/02/my-philadelphia-inquirer-review-of.html

The Philly Rogue Cops Case: The Otter Defense

Veteran crime reporter Ralph Cipriano is covering the so-called Philly rogue cops case for bigtrial.net.

We're entering our fourth week in the rogue cops trial, and so far the poster boy is Jeffrey Walker.

He's the dirty cop who got caught red-handed in an FBI sting operation walking out of a drug dealer's house with $15,000 and five pounds of marijuana. The drunk who showed up loaded at work and got so bombed at his favorite bar every night that he passed out while drooling on himself. The office screw-up who dozed off during stake-outs, bailed on a raid because he needed a hit of Milk of Magnesia; the bumbler who forgot where he left his gun.

Meanwhile, over at the defense table sits Tommy Licardello. If the prosecution's story line is to believed, Liciardello is the dark criminal mastermind who knew how to placate the department brass with headline-grabbing busts while he and his gang were beating and ripping off drug dealers. An amoral, ruthless bandit with a badge who was so slick he supposedly knew how to hide the booty from the feds and all their undercover cameras and FBI accountants.

The jury seems to have gotten their fill of Jeffrey Walker. When the marshalls led him away in handcuffs last week after three days on the witness stand, every juror I saw was looking the other way. Meanwhile, as the trial enters its fourth week, the jury has only seen and will probably never hear from Tommy Licardello. All the jury knows about Liciardello, the pale guy at the defense table who's being held in solitary confinement, is a bunch of allegations from some drug dealers he busted. As for the rest of the defendants, as far as the testimony goes, it's hard to tell Michael Spicer from John Speiser. They're just a bunch of anonymous RICO conspirators.

The feds, already guilty of sloppy detective work in the rogue cops case, can also be faulted for bad story-telling.
The sloppiness of the feds in this case has been ampty demonstrated.

On the eve of trial, the government had to drop a couple of counts from a 26-count indictment because one of their sleazeball witnesses got busted again. And because the feds didn't do their homework in checking out another sleazeball witness's story.

Mistakes were made, an FBI agent admited on the stand. The defense has already made hay out of their plan to call several of the rogue cops's supervisors to the stand, witnesses that the feds never even bothered to talk to.

We didn't interview one lieutenant, an FBI agent testified, because we didn't think he would tell the truth.

Or as the defense suggested, maybe it was because it was only your version of the truth that you wanted to hear.

There are plenty of other problems with the prosecution's case. If Tommy Licardello and the boys stole $500,000 from the drug dealers, as the feds have alleged, what did they do with the money? If the defense is to be believed, there's no paper trail on the alleged booty, or undercover screen grabs of cops getting caught red-handed. Just the word of Walker and a bunch of drug dealers all singing the same song in the federal choir.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2015/04/the-otter-defense.html#more

The Philly Rogue Cops Case: Soldiers In The War On Drugs Or Urban Bandits With Badges

Veteran crime reporter and author George Anastasia (seen in the above photo) is covering the so-called Philly rogue cops case for bigtrial.com.

Disgraced narcotics cop Jeffrey Walker spent three days on the witness stand this week in the federal corruption trial of six fellow officers.

Walker, depending on  your perspective, provided either the high or the low point of the now three week-old trial. By his own admission, he was a liar, cheat and thief during most of his 24 years with the Philadelphia Police Department. But that's a description he and federal prosecutors say that also fits the six members of the Narcotics Field Unit sitting at the defense table in U.S. District Court.

Planting drugs, stealing cash and narcotics, falsifying reports and lying in court were all part of a day's work  in the unit, Walker said.

When the indictment in this case was handed down last year Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey called it one of the worst cases of corruption in the department's history. A more troubling possibility, and one hinted at by the feds, is that the dark side of law enforcement that has been the theme of this prosecution is SOP in narcotics squads.
Walker, 46, took the stand after the jury had heard tales of corruption and abuse from a half dozen admitted drug dealers who in one way or another said their constitutional rights had been trampled  on by lead defendant Thomas Liciardello and his five-co-defendants.

The jury heard more of the same today from several other witnesses arrested by what authorities allege was a rogue unit led by Liciardello.

But it's hard to generate sympathy for criminals which is part of the dilemma facing prosecutors in this case. From many of the reader comments on this website it's clear that there are those who believe the defendants were the front line of defense in a war of drugs and that in that war all that mattered was winning.

Prosecutors, on the other hand, have painted the six accused cops as urban bandits with badges.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2015/04/soldiers-in-war-on-drugs-or-urban.html#more

The Philly Rogue Cops Case: A Gun And A Bottle of Tequila

Veteran crime reporter Ralph Cipriano is covering the federal trial of six Philadelphia police narcotics officers for bigtrial.net.

Police Officer Jeffrey Walker had parked his car in his garage and left the engine running. He'd brought along a gun and a bottle of tequila.

Despondent over his failed marriage, Walker hadn't figured out yet whether he wanted to end it with carbon monoxide or a gunshot. In the meantime, he had his tequila.

Asked if he was going to commit suicide that day back in 2002, the 46-year-old Walker replied, "I was going down that road."

Then, Walker said, his girlfriend showed up and talked him into going to the emergency room at Lankenau Hopsital. On medical records displayed in the courtroom, Walker's "chief complaint" was listed as "suicidal, depressed." His diagnosis: depression.

Walker was taken by ambulance to the psychiatric ward at Bryn Mawr Hospital, the medical records showed. It would have been just another chapter in the life of the government's star witness at the rogue cops trial, a star witness one defense lawyer has aptly described as a train wreck. Except that Walker had made a big deal out of telling the jury that when he became a government witness he had finally stopped lying.

The hitch was, the day he signed his cooperation agreement with the government, the judge had asked Walker if he'd ever been hospitalized or treated for mental illness. Walker's answer was no. To defense lawyer Jeffrey Miller, this was proof that Walker was still lying.
"I walked away the treatment they suggested" at Bryn Mawr, Walker explained on the witness stand. "I wasn't treated."

So that's why Walker said no when the judge asked if he'd ever been hospitalized or treated for mental illness.

Five defense lawyers spent most of the day quizzing Walker. The subjects of discussion included all the incriminating details Walker gave the government in 45 sessions with the FBI about his escapades over the years with six fellow narcotics officers. All six are charged in a RICO conspiracy to beat and rob drug dealers and cover their tracks with falsified police records.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2015/04/a-gun-and-bottle-of-tequila.html#more

The Philly Rogue Cops Case: The Punching Bag In Courtroom 15A

Veteran crime reporter Ralph Cipriano is covering the federal so-called Philly rogue cop case for bigtrial.net.

At the start of his cross-examination, Jack McMahon greeted the prosecution's star witness with a slap upside the head.

"I'd appreciate it if you look at me when I talk," the defense lawyer admonished Jeffrey Walker.

McMahon, a flashy former prosecutor with a white mustache and a shaved head, then spent the next six hours pummeling the witness.

On the receiving end, Walker, a big bearded former narcotics cop who entered the courtroom wearing handcuffs and a drab green prison jumpsuit, seemed used to taking abuse.

"We know you were a thief, right?" McMahon asked the fallen cop that another defense lawyer has characterized to the jury as a train wreck.

"Yes, I was," Walker admitted.

"You're a thief and a historical liar," McMahon added.

"I lie," Walker admitted. "I continued my thievery until I was arrested."

On May 23, 2013, Walker got caught red-handed in an FBI sting operation planting cocaine on a drug dealer and helping himself to $15,000 of the dealer's money while undercover cameras were rolling. After he was arrested, Walker turned on six of his fellow former narcs, telling the feds that they used to routinely beat and rob drug dealers.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2015/04/the-punching-bag-in-courtroom-15a.html#more

Philly Rouge Cops Case: Dirty Cop Fingers Brothers In Blue

Veteran crime reporter and author George Anastasia (seen in the above photo) is covering the federal trial of Philadelphia narcotics officers for bigtrial.net

They broke all the rules, Jeffrey Walker told a federal jury, but they made big arrests, so their supervisors looked the other way.

"It was nothing but a dog and pony show, that's all that it was," Walker said of the headline grabbing arrests and the enhanced status his unit had within the Philadelphia Police Department. All the while, he said he and other members of the Narcotics Field Unit were routinely stealing cash and narcotics from drug dealers and falsifying police reports to cover their tracks.

Asked how many times during his 10 plus years in the unit that he had robbed drug dealers and submitted false reports, Walker calmly replied, "Can't count them there were so many times."

Testifying today in the ongoing corruption trial of six other members of that narcotics squad, Walker, 46, said lying and stealing were a routine part of the job in the squad run by Thomas Liciardello, who has emerged as the lead defendant in the corruption case.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2015/04/dirty-cop-fingers-brothers-in-blue.html#more

You can also read my Philadelphia Inquirer review of George Anastasia's Gotti's Rules via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2015/02/my-philadelphia-inquirer-review-of.html

FBI Agent Concedes Mistakes In Philly Narco Cop Investigation

Veteran crime reporter and author George Anastasia is covering the federal trial of a group of Philadelphia narcotics cops for bigtrial.net.

Mistakes were made in the investigation of six Philadelphia Police Department narcotics investigators, an FBI agent told a federal jury from the witness stand today.

But the agent, John Hess, would not agree with a defense argument that the 26-count indictment charging the veteran officers with going rogue and stealing more than $500,000 in cash, drugs and valuables from drug dealers was a rush to judgment.

Hess also said he could not answer what Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Wzorek called the fundamental question in the case -- how high and how wide had corruption spread through the Philadelphia Police Department?

"I still don't know for certain," said Hess, one of the agents who conducted the six-year probe of the narcotics unit.

Under cross-examination by defense attorneys, Hess acknowledged that the government dropped four of the 26 counts in the original indictment shortly before the trial opened last week in U.S. District Court. Two of the counts were dropped because of conflicting statements made by a government witness. But two others were canned because one of the officers charged in the incidents was either on vacation or off duty when the crimes were allegedly committed.

"Obviously we missed this. We made a mistake," Hess said when defense attorney Jack McMahon showed him police work records indicating that Brian Reynolds, one of the officers charged, was on vacation on March 7, 2010.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2015/04/fbi-agent-concedes-mistakes-in-narco.html#more

Philly Rogue Cops Case: "You're Not John Gotti, Buddy"

Veteran organized crime reporter and author George Anastasia reports on the federal trial of the Philly narcotic cops accused of a number of crimes for bigtrial.net.

He was a college-educated marijuana dealer with $80,000 stashed in a safe in his high-rise apartment and a framed picture of mob boss John Gotti hanging on the wall.

The cops, he said, stole the safe and seven pounds of marijuana he had in the apartment and then taunted him about the picture.

"You're not John Gotti, buddy," Robert Kushner said he was told in a cell phone conversation with Thomas Liciardello, a narcotics investigator who, authorities allege, was the leader of a rogue group of Philadelphia police officers who stole cash and drugs, intimidated drug dealers and falsified police reports to cover up their actions.

Kushner, the first witness called in the racketeering conspiracy trial of Liciardello and five fellow officers, took the witness stand in U.S. District Court this morning and told a jury that he had  experienced all of that after being taken into custody, but not formally charged, on the night of Oct. 16, 2007.
You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2015/03/witness-says-cops-took-cash-and-drugs.html#more

You can also read my Philadelphia Inquirer review of George Anastasia's Gotti's Rules via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2015/02/my-philadelphia-inquirer-review-of.html

Philly Rogue Cops Case: "Nineteen Mutts And A Dirty Cop"

Veteran reporter Ralph Cipriano at bigtrial.net reports on the federal trial of allegedly corrupt Philadelphia police narcotics officers.

A trio of veteran defense lawyers today took turns dismantling the government's case against a band of alleged rogue cops.

Jack McMahon got the party started by describing the government's star witness, former Police Officer Jeffrey Walker, as a "wicked, despicable liar." The rest of the government's stable of witnesses, McMahon said, are a bunch of lying drug dealers who amount to "nineteen bags of trash."

To cap the day, Jimmy Binns, batting third in a lineup of six defense lawyers, described the government's case as "nineteen mutts and a dirty cop."

In the longest opening argument of the day, Binns spent two hours delivering a lengthy, eye-popping recitation of the numerous witnesses in the case that the government supposedly never got around to interviewing. Those witnesses that Binns said would be testifying on behalf of the defendants include a bunch of supervisors in the police department who allegedly were eyewitnesses to many of the incidents in the case, and a couple of young female bartenders who supposedly overheard nightly confessions from a drunken and drooling Officer Walker, before he would pass out.

Most astonishingly, Binns said, the defense plans to call as their witnesses a trio of federal TFOs -- task force operators who work alongside the feds who investigated this case, on the same floor of the office building they share, but somehow were never interviewed by the government.

"This is not a proud day for the Department of Justice," Binns told the jury.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2015/03/nineteen-mutts-and-dirty-cop.html#more 

You can also read Jeremy Roebuck's coverage of the trial at the Philadelphia Inquirer via the below link:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150331_At_trial_of_rogue_narcotics_officers__a_war_of_words.html?nlid=8337531

Philly Rogue Cops Case

Veteran reporter Ralph Cipriano is covering the rogue cops case in Philadelphia federal court for bigtrial.net.

They haven't picked a jury yet but the lawyers in the rogue cops case are already going at it.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony J. Wzorek today challenged defense lawyer Michael J. Diamondstein on his claim that the government may have perpetrated a fraud on a grand jury by putting a witness on the stand who perjured himself.

Turning toward Diamonstein and speaking in a loud voice, Wzorek told the defense lawyer, "We look forward to answering that." The prosecutor told Diamondstein that he and the other defense lawyers in the case could put Wzorek on the witness stand to see if those charges were true.

The prosecutor's baiting of the defense lawyers did not go over with U.S. District Court Judge Eduardo C. Robreno.

"Address the court," the judge snapped at the prosecutor. Diamonstein, who represents former Police Officer John Speiser, started the ruckus on Sunday when he filed a  motion seeking to quash the federal indictment of his client under the RICO act. In his motion, Diamonstein charged that perjury committed by a witness identified as "C.C." was "easily and readily identifiable by the government's agents."  But the feds chose to willfully ignore it, exhibiting a "reckless disregard for the truth," Diamondstein charged.

Clearly those were fighting words to Wzorek.

 You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2015/03/prosecutor-gets-hot-under-collar-judge.html#more

And you can read Ralph Cipriano's earlier rogue cops case post via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2015/03/rogue-cops-say-federal-witness-perjured.html

Note: On assignment for The Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security, I had gone out with Philadelphia Narcotics Field Unit South just prior to the arrest of the narcotics officers currently on trial. I spoke to Lt. Robert Otto, the unit's supervisor, on a Southwest Philly street after his officers raided a drug house. Otto was also the supervisor of the accused officers, and that night he offered to allow me to accompany those very officers at a later date.

Of course, with their arrest, it was not to be.

I don't know if the accused officers are guilty or not, but I do know that the overwhelming majority of Philly cops are good, honest officers.

You can read my piece on the Philly narcotics unit via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2012/05/chasing-drugs-guns-and-violence-night.html