Lawyers for six narcotics officers to begin defense

A moment Thursday in testimony at the federal corruption trial of six members of an elite Philadelphia narcotics squad is likely to loom large in defense arguments to come.

Lt. Douglas Stanford, an Internal Affairs supervisor testifying for the government, walked jurors through Police Department policies requiring that all confidential informants be registered, and barring officers from striking cooperation deals with suspects without first consulting the District Attorney's Office.

"I just want to make sure the jury understands this," defense lawyer Jack McMahon asked during his cross-examination. "This is department policy, right? Not following this policy is not a violation of federal law, is it?"

The answer - not exactly - will likely be revisited as lawyers for Officers Thomas Liciardello, Brian Reynolds, Michael Spicer, Perry Betts, Linwood Norman, and John Speiser begin presenting defense evidence.

So what, they have asked, if their clients occasionally bent department rules to take large drug hauls and illegally earned cash off the streets? Does that necessarily make them criminals?

"This is not a polite world," McMahon said in his opening statement to jurors last month. "You're dealing every day with addicts, drug dealers, people with guns. You're dealing with people that don't like you.

Over four weeks, prosecutors have put before the jury 17 accusers, who all told of a rogue squad running the streets with gang-like efficiency. They alleged that squad members routinely threatened and roughed up suspects, pocketed seized money, and falsified police paperwork to downplay their takes.

The government's case has relied heavily on the sheer volume of drug suspects telling strikingly similar tales. They hope the shared details in their stories can persuade a jury that consists largely of white suburban residents to look past defense arguments that the witnesses' credibility is damaged by their criminal pasts.

The stories have largely overlapped in the small details. Several witnesses said the plainclothes officers failed to identify themselves as police. Others maintained they were never officially placed under arrest or read their rights.

Almost all of the accusing drug dealers have stated that the squad members tried to persuade them to give up suppliers, with promises that cooperating could make their own cases go away.

Yet police reports filed in many of their cases state the opposite.

The logic, as prosecutors see it, is: Proving that members of the Narcotics Field Unit cavalierly approached department policy and inaccurately recorded small points on official police paperwork adds credibility to assertions from drug suspects that those in the group lied on large points, such as the amounts of money and property they reported as seized.

Consider the case of Leonard Sammons, a 60-year-old prescription pill peddler who prosecutors have said was arrested based on a falsified police report and perjured testimony in court.

Testifying Thursday, Sammons detailed his August 2010 sale of 186 Endocet pills to Robin Pickron, a woman working off her own potential drug charges under Liciardello's supervision.

Days after Pickron returned to Liciardello with the pills, Sammons was placed under arrest.

But at an early court hearing in Sammons' case, Jeffrey Walker, a former squad member, testified that he - not Pickron - had bought the drugs.

Walker, who has turned against his former colleagues and testified for prosecutors, told jurors last week that his boss, Sgt. Joseph McCloskey, and Liciardello told him to lie under oath at the hearing.

Testimony on Thursday from Stanford, the Internal Affairs supervisor, was intended to show jurors why. Pickron had never been registered as a confidential informant with the department, he said, a violation that might have led to disciplinary action against Liciardello or put the case against Sammons in jeopardy.

But McMahon, in cross-examining the lieutenant, brushed off such concerns as little more than bureaucratic hand-wringing.

In a real-life situation where timing was crucial, he speculated - "not in some paperwork or some directive" - there must be a process for bypassing such procedures as long as a supervisor approved.

Stanford, however, was unyielding. "If drugs are happening today, they are going to be happening tomorrow," he said. "There was never anything in my experience that was exigent enough that it precluded following proper policy."

Frustrated, McMahon shot back: "You probably didn't make many 50-kilo arrests, did you? How many 50-kilo arrests did you make?"