Defense challenges FBI's work in police corruption case

For four weeks, federal prosecutors have challenged the choices of six members of an elite Philadelphia police drug squad and accused them of pocketing drug money and trampling on suspects' rights.

But as defense lawyers opened their case Friday, it was their turn to object to the FBI's methods.

Moving through nine witnesses at a whirlwind clip, lawyer Jack McMahon left no decision made by federal investigators unquestioned.

Why, McMahon asked, did agents wait until after indicting the officers to interview police supervisors who witnessed operations the FBI has since flagged as suspicious? And why didn't they verify key details in stories told by the officers' drug-dealing accusers?

Prosecutors countered with their own pointed queries.

Did agents delay approaching police top brass, Assistant U.S. Attorney Maureen McCartney asked, for fear that they, too, might turn out to be corrupt? Could the "dozens and dozens" of complaints filed against drug squad's members explain why it took time to run down the details of each story?

At times, the two sets of opposing lawyers appeared to be lobbing their questions as challenges to each other, rendering answers offered from the witness stand almost pointless.

Did anyone bother, McMahon asked FBI Special Agent Joe Balestrieri, to verify one drug suspect's claims that it was workers' compensation money the officers took during a drug raid on his home?

"Regardless of what the money was," Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Wzorek countered, "does it make a difference if it was stolen? Is there any license to steal money in the commonwealth?"

That heated exchange came just moments after prosecutors rested their case against Officers Thomas Liciardello, Brian Reynolds, Michael Spicer, Perry Betts, Linwood Norman, and John Speiser - all members of the Police Department Narcotics Field Unit.

Over 15 days of testimony, government witnesses testified that squad members ran roughshod over their rights, physically abused them, and pocketed money that should have been seized as evidence.

But from the start, the defense team has accused prosecutors of unquestioningly accepting the word of drug dealers and convicted felons.

"The government has shown an incredible willingness - an outright gullibility - to accept anything these drug dealers told them," McMahon told jurors during his opening statement last month.

In questioning Friday, lawyers challenged FBI Special Agent Dennis Drum on what efforts he took to verify one drug suspect's story that the squad stole $7,000 in cash he planned to use to pay his daughter's nursing school tuition. Agents did not check whether he had made other large cash payments to the school.

As for the claim of another government witness - that officers took $6,000 from her cashed FEMA check - agents did not verify that she had ever withdrawn that cash from her bank account.

But two of the most disturbing allegations lodged against the officers surfaced again in questioning of Chief Inspector Christopher Werner, who previously served as captain over the department's Narcotics Bureau.

Marijuana dealer Michael Cascioli told jurors last month that drug-squad members leaned him over an 18th-floor balcony and threatened to throw him off in an effort to scare him into cooperating.

Werner, who participated in the raid on Cascioli's apartment, testified Friday that the dealer appeared to be cooperative from the moment he arrived at the scene. Still, Werner conceded during cross-examination, he was not present the whole time officers were questioning Cascioli.

The chief inspector was also involved in the earlier case of Rodolfo Javier Blanco, a Frankford man who said the squad held him in a hotel room against his will for four days in 2006 and forced him to cooperate in setting up heroin dealers by threatening his family.

As the Narcotics Bureau captain, Werner said, he approved Blanco's role as a confidential informant and the decision to keep him in a hotel while he cooperated.

Though the captain said he could not remember many specific details of the case, he saw no sign that Blanco was being forced to work with investigators under duress when he met with the man.

But as prosecutors questioned why so few details about Blanco's cooperation made it into official police files, Werner wavered.

Police reports say officers found heroin and an AK-47 in his house - evidence Blanco contends the officers' planted. Yet, after his cooperation, Blanco was never arrested or charged with a crime.

Asked by prosecutors how he could approve of releasing such a "big-time drug dealer" back on the streets, Werner said he could not remember the thought process behind that decision. But, he added, "as the captain, I'm going to have to take responsibility for it."

"It was a misstep," he said. "He should have been arrested."

Defense testimony is expected to resume Tuesday.