Ex-narc cop gets lenient sentence for cooperation

FORMER NARCOTICS COP Jeffrey Walker, who cooperated extensively with the feds after his arrest and who testified against six of his former colleagues at their trial this spring, was sentenced yesterday to 3 1/2 years in prison.

U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno, who presided over the trial of Walker's former colleagues - ex-narcotics cop Thomas Liciardello and five others - said he found Walker's testimony at their trial to be truthful and reliable.

On the other hand, Robreno said, he found the testimony of two of the six ex-cops' former supervisors - Lt. Robert Otto and Sgt. Joseph McCloskey - "not to be credible."

Walker, 46, dressed in a forest-green prison jumpsuit, looking downcast, stood before a podium and tearfully told the judge during a 10-minute statement that he was sorry for his actions.

"I have no excuses for what I've done," he said.

He apologized to the police commissioner, his former police coworkers and to the community.

His arrest - after he was caught in a May 21, 2013, FBI sting trying to steal $15,000 from a suspected drug dealer's home in Kingsessing - "was a turning point for me finally to move in the right direction," he told the judge.

He pleaded guilty in February 2014 to one count each of attempted robbery and of carrying a firearm during a crime of violence.

Walker has already served 26 months in prison since his arrest. He has been jailed in the Special Housing Unit of the Philadelphia Federal Detention Center. In the SHU, where he is kept for his own protection, he is in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.

By cooperating with the feds, Walker "broke the institutional code of silence in the police department," Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Wzorek said.

Walker met numerous times with the FBI to review police paperwork and testified at a grand jury, leading to the indictment of his six former colleagues: Liciardello, Brian Reynolds, Michael Spicer, Perry Betts, Linwood Norman and John Speiser.

His testimony during the trial of his six former colleagues "was credible and reliable despite the jury's verdict," acquitting the six defendants, Wzorek said.

Robreno also said that without Walker's cooperation, there would not have been a case against Liciardello and the five others. Those six were indicted last year, accused of robbing suspected drug dealers of nearly $500,000 worth of cash, personal items and drugs, at times using violence, while they were members of the elite Narcotics Field Unit.

The case against the six ex-narcotics cops shone a light on narcotics work - the good and the bad - and it "offered a window into the temptations" that narcotics cops face, the judge said.

The mostly white suburban jury had heard about 2 1/2 days of testimony from Walker and testimony from 19 alleged victims who were suspected drug dealers.

Robreno asked how one could "square the jury's verdict" with the evidence at the trial.

He said he believes "the answer to that" can be found in words said by Jack McMahon, who was the lead attorney on the defense team for the six ex-narcotics cops who were on trial. McMahon, in his closing argument, the judge quoted, had told jurors "you are not here to decide whether they [the six defendants] are innocent." Instead, they had to decide if the government had proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

"The government failed to prove their [the six defendants'] culpability beyond a reasonable doubt," the judge said.

Walker's attorney, Thomas Fitzpatrick, spoke of "the very public nature" of the six ex-narcotics cops' trial and the toll it had on his client and his client's family.

Walker's sister, Karen Walker, and one of Walker's two ex-wives, were both Philly police officers, when Walker was cooperating with the feds, Fitzpatrick said.

Karen Walker "sadly passed away the day of the verdict" of the six ex-narcotics cops' trial in May, after battling cancer, he said.

Fitzpatrick said Jeffrey Walker "at this point, is consumed with trying to do the right thing and consumed with trying to recover the man he was."

He asked for leniency - for a 37-month sentence for Walker.

Walker, who served 24 years as a police officer, will never be a cop again, Fitzpatrick said. "Some might argue that's sadly not the case for all of those involved."

Fitzpatrick was referring to Liciardello and the five others who have since been reinstated to the police force. They will not work in narcotics. Rather, they returned to the jobs they held just before they were fired - in districts, or for Norman, at the impound lot.

Federal prosecutors filed a motion stating Walker has provided substantial assistance. By doing so, it allowed the judge to disregard a mandatory-minimum sentence in Walker's case. The judge also granted the feds' request for a downward departure from the sentencing guidelines.

Wzorek did not ask the judge for a specific sentence for Walker.

The judge ordered Walker to participate in an alcohol-treatment program. He also ordered him to serve three years' supervised release after prison.

At the end of the hearing, Walker looked toward Assistant U.S. Attorney Maureen McCartney, who with Wzorek prosecuted the six former narcotics cops, and said "Thank you." And he told one of the FBI agents: "Be cool."