Enmity between feds and supervisors of accused officers

One thing is clear after Thursday's tension-filled testimony in the federal corruption trial of six members of an elite Philadelphia police narcotics squad: There is little love lost between the feds and the two supervisors who most closely oversaw the unit.

A federal prosecutor implied that one - Sgt. Joseph McCloskey - had committed crimes alongside his officers. An FBI agent testified earlier that he did not believe the other - Lt. Robert Otto - could be relied upon to tell the truth.

But as the commanding officers took their turns on the witness stand, they took the opportunity to shoot back.

Challenged by Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Wzorek on conditions he set before agreeing to an FBI interview this year, McCloskey raised his voice and stood by his demands that agents video-record his interview and agree that nothing he said could be used to prosecute him.

"I'd have to have been insane not to have a lawyer," he said.

Wzorek shot back: "Because you have criminal liability?"

"No," the sergeant replied, leaning out of his chair. "Because it's my constitutional right, and I don't trust you."

Later, Otto confronted John Hess, the FBI agent who had questioned his credibility.

"You Hess?" the lieutenant asked, sidling up to the investigator at the end of the day in court.

Hess nodded as Otto fixed him with a withering glare and brushed past him on his way out of the courtroom.

Between those incidents, the discord eased only slightly.

Prosecutors have not charged McCloskey or Otto, but they allege the drug squad members they supervised - Officers Thomas Liciardello, Brian Reynolds, Michael Spicer, Perry Betts, Linwood Norman, and John Speiser - conducted their work like street thugs, roughing up drug suspects, ignoring due process, pocketing seized drug money, and falsifying paperwork to cover up their crimes.

Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey transferred both supervisors out of narcotics when the federal investigation of their squad became public knowledge last year. Otto now oversees several investigative units from Detective Bureau headquarters.

Thursday marked the third day on the stand for McCloskey, a 29-year police veteran. He called the allegations against his squad members "ridiculous" and "nonsense."

A day earlier, he told jurors he had accompanied his squad on many of the jobs that prosecutors have since flagged as suspicious and that he never saw anything untoward. Questioned by lawyers for the officers, McCloskey gave detailed accounts of each arrest, drug seizure, and search warrant raid.

But under cross-examination, his recollections were less assured. He fumbled when asked which officers were with him on some jobs, and said he could not remember which areas he had searched on others.

"You remember all those details, but you don't remember others?" Wzorek asked.

"That's why we have paperwork," McCloskey replied.

Later McCloskey said he had not reviewed the police reports on any of the incidents that make up the case against the drug squad before talking to the FBI.

"I'm going from my memory to give you the truth," he said. "If I read that, I'm just memorizing something."

As for his list of demands for his FBI interview, McCloskey said federal authorities did not get in touch with him until after they indicted the six officers working under him. Had agents asked him what had occurred before bringing a criminal case, he said, he "would have spoken to them freely."

Otto was never approached for an interview.

But on the stand Thursday, he, too, vouched for the squad on four jobs he witnessed, contradicting statements from government witnesses that they were beaten or threatened if they refused to cooperate.

In fact, he said, he had so little patience for corruption, he routinely referred his own officers to Internal Affairs just to clear them of suspicion.

Once, he said, he even suggested putting himself on restricted duty, after Officer Jeffrey Walker lodged a false allegation against him. Otto and McCloskey described Walker - a former squad member who testified against his one-time colleagues after pleading guilty in a separate corruption case - in less than glowing terms.

"He had problems," Otto said. "I did my best to help him with those problems, given the difficulties of the job we did. Apparently, it wasn't enough."

Yet in performance reviews, shown to jurors by prosecutors, McCloskey had lauded the now-disgraced former officer for his "heroic efforts" and his "exceptional" work. He repeatedly rated Walker as eligible for promotion.

"It has been a pleasure being your supervising officer," McCloskey wrote in Walker's 2007 review. Otto cosigned.

But they saved their most fulsome praise for the officers now on trial.

Of Liciardello, McCloskey told the FBI that the officer was "as sweet as pie" when talking to drug suspects. In fact, said the sergeant, Liciardello's congeniality sometimes made him nauseous.

Government witnesses have said Liciardello threatened them with everything from seizing their houses to making sure that they lost their jobs if they failed to cooperate with investigations. One drug suspect testified that the officer promised to have the man's wife and daughter arrested, and said they would probably be raped in prison.

Otto called Liciardello "the best investigator I ever met."

He was no less effusive when it came to the rest of the squad.

"They took millions of dollars of poison off the street," Otto said. "I used to tell them, 'You guys will never know how many lives you have saved until you meet your maker and he opens the gates to you.'

"This here," he continued, referring to the trial that had landed them all in court, "this here makes no sense to me."

Prosecutors are expected to continue to their cross-examination of Otto on Friday. Closing arguments in the case are scheduled for next week.

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