Twelve New York City police officers were charged yesterday with forcing drug dealers to pay them protection money to operate on the streets of Harlem. They beat up some dealers who would not cooperate, investigators said, and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in drugs and cash from others.
It was the biggest single roundup of New York City police officers on corruption charges in nearly a decade. By morning, the 12 were in custody and their precinct captain was transferred to a desk job, one of the few times a commanding officer has been removed for accusations of wrongdoing against subordinates.
Senior law-enforcement officials say similar cases of lawbreaking and wrongdoing are expected to unfold in the months ahead, implicating up to 10 of the city's 75 precincts.
The investigators said they ran three stings, including one out of a bodega that fronted for a drug market, and tracked the officers for two years as they bought and sold drugs and broke into apartments and cars to steal drugs and cash.
The investigation culminated late Thursday with the spectacle of two officers being taken in handcuffs out of the 30th Precinct station house in northwest Harlem, amid a cacophony of neighborhood catcalls. Nine officers, all working the midnight shift at the 30th Precinct, were arrested by morning. Three had pleaded guilty earlier in the week.
After the officers were arrested overnight, Police Commissioner William J. Bratton went to the precinct yesterday morning and rebuked their colleagues for failing to stop, or even to report, the corruption in their midst. "I'm disappointed that more of you, as widespread as the problems are up here, didn't do more to deal with it," Commissioner Bratton said.
A senior investigator said the corruption was so flagrant that it would have been impossible for many other officers not to have had at least some knowledge of it, if only secondhand.
Several rogue officers called themselves the Felony Key Club, the
investigators said, coining the nickname from their practice of taking keys from suspected narcotics traffickers to enter apartments where drugs and money were hidden.
Residents in the 30th Precinct have long complained that the police do little to stop rampant drug-dealing in the neighborhood, where more than half the population is black or Hispanic and roughly a third live below the poverty level.
In one incident reported in the court complaints, an officer struck a drug dealer on the head in December, grabbed a bag of cocaine from him and then shot him in the midsection, seriously wounding him. Another officer was found to have made $60,000 by stealing cash and selling drugs over three years. Several other officers were videotaped or otherwise found to have stuffed thousands of dollars in confiscated cash into their pants, socks and rubber gloves, investigators said. And still others, they said, regularly took payoffs as protection money from neighborhood drug dealers trying to monopolize their turf.
Corruption was so rampant that several suspected officers continued their activities even after news reports in August reported that law-enforcement agencies were investigating the precinct. Last fall, investigators said, an officer in the station house watching television coverage of corruption uncovered elsewhere said jestingly to his comrades, "Yeah, yeah, that could be us."
Milton Mollen, the former Deputy Mayor whose commission examining police corruption began the investigations of the Harlem precinct, said yesterday, "These police officers have stained the honor of the vast majority of police officers who daily serve the people of our city with great dedication, integrity and distinction."
It was the first investigation begun and conducted in large part by the commission, which previously had chiefly chronicled other investigations and made recommendations on how to fight corruption.
Multiple Counts
The officers were charged with multiple counts of narcotics conspiracy, first-degree robbery and assault, violation of civil rights and criminal sale of controlled substances. Two officers, Randolf Vasquez and Michael Walsh, could face life sentences.
The three officers arrested last week - Jorge Alvarez, George Nova and Alberto Vargas - pleaded guilty yesterday to a variety of charges. And one officer charged today, Russell Litwenak, was also arrested last month, after another sting run by the Police Department and the offices of the Manhattan District Attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau.
One arrested officer, Michael Walsh, 33, is said to have regularly spoken to other officers about arranging cocaine sales for him. During the search of an apartment, Mr. Walsh reportedly found a bag containing $100,000 in cash and offered to split it with his partner, who was wearing a recording device.
As seven of the officers were presented for an initial court appearance in Federal court in Manhattan yesterday afternoon, Officer Christopher DiLorenzo, 30, and his wife cried quietly, their heads bowed together.
Almost all of the men, some of whom were rousted from their homes in the middle of the night, were hastily dressed in blue jeans, tennis shoes and windbreaker-style jackets. They looked stunned and exhausted.
"These officers used their shields as a weapon, a weapon used to rob and intimidate," Commissioner Bratton said, hours after he personally took the badges, or shields, from two officers and removed John W. Seymour as captain of the 30th Precinct. He was given a temporary assignment as a desk officer in Police Headquarters.
Investigators found that the Police Department had neglected for years to follow up on citizen complaints about a widespread pattern of corruption and physical abuse in the 30th Precinct. In one case, an inmate at Riverview Correctional Facility in Ogdensberg, N.Y., Edward Thompson, reported that one suspect arrested today, Officer Alfonso Compres, punched him while making racial slurs during a December 1991 arrest.
Even after an appeals court threw out the drug case against Mr. Thompson in1992, the Police Department did not discipline Officer Compres. Mr. Thompson, who is serving time on other drug charges, is suing the city for damages.
Commissioner Bratton seized on the arrests yesterday to push his
anti-corruption campaign, which includes more stings and more emphasis on corruption in training and at the Police Academy. A police video crew filmed the news conference announcing the arrests for an anti- corruption tape that will be distributed to the precincts.
Weeding Out the Ranks
"This department will work very, very aggressively to seek those out from our ranks who should not be here," Commissioner Bratton said during the morning roll call at the 30th Precinct. "It is unfortunate that there are still people in this precinct who should not be here. We know who you are and you know who you are."
He then introduced their new commander, Capt. Thomas Sweeney, whose previous assignment was as Commander of the 45th Precinct in the Bronx.
"It's going to be a long, hard fight to turn things around as far as getting the community's respect and confidence back again," Captain Sweeney told reporters yesterday. "But I have all the confidence in the world that I'll accomplish that in a short period of time."
Commissioner Bratton's anti- corruption efforts have taken on more urgency now that he has ordered uniformed police officers to make arrests of drug dealers, a task primarily left to specialized anti-narcotics units since the Knapp Commission concluded in 1971 that many police officers were on the take from such street criminals.
THE SUSPECTS
Arrested on the Force
The officers charged in the corruption scandal in the 30th Precinct, their ages, length of service, the charges against them:
Jorge Alvarez, 33, with the force for 12 years; pleaded guilty to third-degree grand larceny.
John Arena, 32, with the force 10 years; charged with narcotics conspiracy and violation of civil rights.
Alfonso Compres, 33; on the force four years; charged with two counts of first-degree robbery, two counts of first-degree assault, intimidating a witness, tampering with physical evidence, narcotics conspiracy and violation of civil rights resulting in a bodily injury.
Christopher DiLorenzo, 30; on the force eight years; charged with three counts of first-degree perjury, narcotics conspiracy and violation of civil rights.
Ruben Garza, 34; on the force 10 years; charged with narcotics conspiracy and violation of civil rights.
Russell Litwenak, 45; on the force 21 years; charged with violation of civil rights.
George Nova, 31; on the force eight years; pleaded guilty to distribution of narcotics and conspiracy to violate civil rights.
Josue Rivera, 32, on the force seven years; charged with narcotics conspiracy.
Stephen Setteducatto, 42; 20-year veteran; charged with tampering with physical evidence, offering a false instrument for filing, petty larceny, and fifth-degree conspiracy.
Alberto Vargas, 32; on the force nine years; pleaded guilty to distribution of narcotics and income tax evasion.
Randolf Vasquez, 32; on the force nine years; charged with two counts of first-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance, two counts of second-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and second-degree conspiracy.
Michael Walsh, 33; on the force eight years; charged with first-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance, second-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, second-degree conspiracy, two counts of first-degree perjury, narcotics conspiracy and violation of civil rights.
