BY JULIE SHAW
EX-COP RAFAEL CORDERO and his
supporters passionately told a federal judge yesterday that Cordero swayed from
his law-abiding ways to help a family member.
Cordero, 53, was convicted by a
jury in December of passing sensitive law-enforcement information about drug
investigations to his half brother, David Garcia, who was a member of a
Kensington heroin drug-trafficking ring.
"This is a unique set of
circumstances, dealing with a brother who [Cordero] has been tortured with over
the years," defense attorney Jack McMahon told U.S. District Judge Paul
Diamond.
Cordero tried to get Garcia on
the right side of the law, McMahon said.
One police officer, dressed in
his uniform, came to court to support Cordero. Officer Mario Santiago, of the
traffic unit, told the judge: "Sometimes, we as a police officer think as a
family first."
Cordero, rocking back and
forth, tearfully told the judge that when he told the information to his half
brother in 2011, he wasn't acting as the cop that he was, but was "looking
at [Garcia] as my brother."
But Diamond saw the case much
differently.
He said the jury rejected that
Cordero was just trying to help his half brother.
Before sentencing Cordero to 15
years in prison, Diamond said Cordero "was not trying to help his brother
stay alive," but "was trying to help his brother sell drugs."
The judge noted that Police
Commissioner Charles Ramsey had submitted a letter asking for the maximum
sentence allowed, 20 years in prison, for Cordero.
During the two-hour hearing,
the judge and McMahon verbally sparred over elements of the case. At one point,
McMahon told the judge he believed the government's portrayal of Cordero to be
"disingenuous," prompting the judge to interrupt.
Cordero was aiding a drug
organization that was "helping to kill the city he [Cordero] swore to
protect," the judge said.
After McMahon heatedly
disagreed, arguing that the facts didn't fit into a neat, little pattern, the
judge called for a brief break.
During the government's turn,
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Brenner called Cordero "deceptive, defiant
and duplicitous," saying he lied to his fellow officers, to the FBI and to
the jury at his trial.
The jury convicted Cordero of
two counts each of obstruction of justice and of lying to the feds.
After the hearing, McMahon and
Cordero's family were visibly upset by the judge's sentence. McMahon called the
long prison term "unspeakably cruel."
