PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Six city
narcotics officers used gangland tactics to shake down drug dealers, relying on
guns, badges, beatings and threats to extort huge piles of cash and cocaine,
federal authorities charged in an indictment Wednesday.
The police officers once held a
suspect over an 18th floor balcony and used a steel bar to beat someone else in
the head, authorities said. They held one man captive in a hotel room for
several days while he and his family were threatened, they said.
And another dealer was thrown
in a jail cell overnight, uncharged, while officers broke into his home and
stole a safe with $80,000 in it.
"It is almost a perennial
in this city, that you go from one corrupt narcotics unit to another,"
said lawyer Larry Krasner, who represents some of the approximately 60 people
suing the city and individual officers over tainted drug arrests. "When
you're dealing with narcotics, there is always more temptation because the
ability to steal, and to extort and to abuse is much greater."
The scheme ran from 2006 to
2012, when Officer Jeffrey Walker was arrested. He has since pleaded guilty and
cooperated in the ensuing two-year probe. Walker and a colleague "stole
and distributed a multi-kilo quantity of cocaine, like everyday drug dealers
do," U.S. Attorney Zane Memeger said.
The six accused officers —
Thomas Liciardello, Brian Reynolds, Michael Spicer, Perry Betts, Linwood Norman
and John Speiser — all pleaded not guilty during brief federal court hearings
Thursday afternoon. They will be held without bail until detention hearings
Monday.
Defense lawyers said the
allegations come from dubious informants: drug dealers and Walker.
"I'm surprised the
government will give them so much deference and credence," said lawyer
Gregory Pagano, who represents Betts.
Brian McMonagle, a lawyer
representing Liciardello, predicted they would all be exonerated and returned
to duty.
They will be suspended by the
department while police administrators take steps to fire them. They had been
put on desk duty as the investigation unfolded, and dozens of cases have since
been dismissed.
"I took them out of
narcotics, but I left them ... on the job," said Police Commissioner
Charles Ramsey, who attended a news conference with the U.S. attorney. "I
didn't want to do anything to jeopardize that investigation."
The charges in the 26-count
indictment include racketeering conspiracy, extortion, robbery, kidnapping and
drug dealing. The alleged shakedowns involved the seizure of as much as
$210,000 at a time, along with three kilos of cocaine, Rolex watches and a
Calvin Klein suit. The officers sometimes reported some of the cash on police
reports, and other times reported nothing at all, the indictment said.
Most of the defendants face at
least a seven-year mandatory sentence if convicted.
But the U.S. attorney
acknowledged police corruption cases can be difficult to win. He said
investigators have to build a rock-solid case before making arrests because
"you know that a battle is coming when you get to trial."
The Philadelphia district
attorney's office said it notified police two years ago that it would no longer
rely on testimony from five of the officers, and as a result no open cases
involving them remained. Cases involving the sixth officer, Norman, were now
being reviewed, the office said in a statement.
Walker pleaded guilty in
February to stealing $15,000 from a drug dealer in a plot that also involved
planting drugs in his car. His lawyer had said he was cooperating in a wider
probe of the drug trafficking unit.
Ramsey has made fighting police
corruption a hallmark of his six-year tenure in Philadelphia. He complained
that the police contract bars him from transferring officers between units or
making other personnel changes without cause.
"The commissioner is
right," Krasner said. "We have arbitrators who routinely put officers
back in the department who never should have been there in the first
place."
