Police Corruption

He is a decorated 13-year veteran. He once was dragged for a block with his arm wedged in the window of a stolen car and cracked his back, but he still arrested the thief. He comes from tough law-enforcement stock. His father is a former cop, his uncle a no-nonsense Common Pleas Court judge. Now Louis J. Maier 3d is the sixth former 39th District police officer to admit that he is dirty. Maier, 38, has reached a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office and is scheduled to appear before a federal district judge today to enter his guilty plea, his attorney, L. Felipe Restrepo, said yesterday.

After six years as a federal prosecutor in Philadelphia, including three years uprooting corruption in the Police Department, Howard Klein is leaving the U.S. attorney's office. By Friday, Klein will have packed his bags to become a partner in the Center City law firm of Blank, Rome, Comisky and McCauley. "It's time to move on," said Klein, 36, a widely respected prosecutor who has spent the last year as chief of the criminal division supervising 45 trial lawyers for U.S. Attorney Edward S.G. Dennis Jr. Those who got to know him by his work in the U.S. Courthouse - agents, other prosecutors, defense attorneys - say Klein was a talented, aggressive and fair advocate for the government.

Kevin M. Tucker, sworn in yesterday as Philadelphia's police commissioner, said that among his first priorities would be ending police corruption and "the verbal and physical abuse of our citizens" by police. With that in mind, he immediately announced the creation of a new command position of first deputy commissioner, to be filled by Robert Armstrong, a former deputy commissioner who had served as acting commissioner since Gregore J. Sambor resigned in November. "First Deputy Commissioner Armstrong will be responsible with me for reviewing and enhancing programs regarding ethics and accountability and for ensuring the departmental cooperation with outside agencies," Tucker said.

Scandals at the Philadelphia Police Department have a familiar ring. In 1981, when I was U.S. Attorney, my office obtained indictments and convictions of 12 officers. In time, 35 members of the department were convicted, including its No. 2 officer. The investigation ended in 1986. Nine years later, a fresh wave of corruption has been exposed, this one appearing to dwarf the last one. Experience teaches that there are several factors underlying nearly every police corruption scandal.

Los Angeles Police Chief Willie Williams, in Philadelphia to promote his new book, told an audience at Temple University that he favors using nonviolent prisoners to clean up graffiti. "I think it's a good idea," Williams told about 60 people gathered in Kiva Auditorium at 13th Street and Cecil B. Moore Boulevard. "Graffiti vandalism is what it is. It does send a signal that we don't care about this wall, we don't care about this block, this neighborhood. " Although he said he has been "concentrating on L.A. " and hasn't kept up with events in Philadelphia, Williams did claim credit for starting the current probe into police corruption when he was the police commissioner here.

Ten officers have been charged, six have pleaded guilty and were sentenced to long prison terms, and federal prosecutors are apparently still far from finished with their probe of corruption in the Philadelphia Police Department. But there's another probe under way that asks not what happened but why. Unlike the federal criminal investigation, this parallel probe is not going to put anyone in jail. Yet for the city and its taxpayers, the stakes in the second investigation could not be higher.

Faced with a growing number of Philadelphia Police officers in handcuffs, Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey on Thursday announced plans to assign more officers to the department's Internal Affairs bureau, enhance officer training in ethics issues and create new ways for officers to report misconduct among their colleagues. Ramsey said he was not sure how many officers would be transferred to Internal Affairs, but said they would be assigned to a joint task force that works with the FBI on investigating police corruption.

In the wake of recent high-profile cases of alleged criminal wrongdoing in the police department, Commissioner Charles Ramsey yesterday outlined a plan to weed out bad cops that emphasizes prevention, training, more investigators, community and police input, and higher recruitment standards. "The vast, vast majority of the men and women in this department do their jobs in an absolutely exemplary manner every single day," Ramsey stressed of the 6,600-member force. "But one officer that commits a corrupt act is too many.

District Attorney Lynne Abraham, the "tough cookie," went into City Council's budgetary oven yesterday and came out badly scorched. Her ordeal began with her budget request for a 9 percent increase, almost $2 million more than the Rendell administration's $21.5 million figure for her office. Before it ended, she faced sharp questioning on her level of cooperation with the Public Defender in rooting out criminal cases corrupted by bad cops in the 39th District and her investigation of Moises DeJesus' death while in police custody.

Police scandals had become old hat in this city - until 1995 delivered one that promised to shake the department to its foundation. It started in the spring with federal indictments of five 39th District officers and a highway patrolman who confessed to beating suspects, planting drugs, stealing from citizens, manufacturing evidence for search warrants, and lying in sworn testimony to win convictions. Then the FBI probe widened to include all of the highway division, and investigators began reviewing arrest records citywide.

A FEDERAL JUDGE recently ruled against the Police Advisory Commission's former chief investigator, who had sued the city after claiming he was pushed out in retaliation for referring a complainant to the Daily News. Wellington Stubbs referred police informant Ventura Martinez to reporter Wendy Ruderman after Martinez filed a complaint in December 2008 about police misconduct. Stubbs argued that his actions were protected by the First Amendment, but U.S. District Judge Jan E. DuBois ruled against him on Jan. 27, adding that "the speech was not protected because [Stubbs]

WHAT I remember most was the voice. Bayard Brunt's voice was a flat monotone - with a touch of gravel to give it more character - and weighted with a kind of suppressed menace. You wouldn't have wanted to be on the wrong side of that voice. That voice told you that the man behind it wasn't going to take any of your crap. You'd better level with him or you'd regret it. As a reporter and rewrite man for the old Evening Bulletin , Bayard was the kind of reporter they used to make legends about.

"MAN ON a Ledge" is a movie so bold, so innovative, there hasn't been anything remotely like it since . . . "Ledge," a couple of months ago. The latter starred Charlie Hunnam as the ledge-bound protagonist, Terrence Howard the sympathetic cop, and went pretty much straight to DVD. Now comes "Man on a Ledge," which merits theatrical release based of its "B" movie panache, and the way it expands from its pitch-meeting premise into an action-thriller about...

Jurors at the trial of two former Camden police officers heard a prosecutor and defense attorney offer competing analyses of testimony describing 13 incidents in 2008 and 2009 in which the officers allegedly broke the law while making drug arrests. The painstakingly detailed closing arguments are to continue Wednesday in U.S. District Court. Antonio Figueroa, 35, and Robert Bayard, 33, once members of the city's Special Operations Unit, are accused of violating the constitutional rights of defendants by stealing cash, planting evidence, and lying in reports and to state grand juries.

THE NUMBER is 26. It's a small number, really, if you're talking about the price of a ticket to a Phillies game or lunch for two people downtown. In this case, though, 26 is the number of Philadelphia police officers who have been led away in handcuffs during the past two years. All of a sudden, the number seems a hell of a lot bigger. The total would seem to suggest either that the police force is more corrupt than ever or that Internal Affairs investigators, the FBI and the District Attorney's Office have gotten better at weeding out the department's bad apples.

IN JANET Golden's letter "Abandoning women on abortion" (Feb. 16), she cries out how the Legislature wants to outlaw all abortion services from any low-cost health insurance offered by the state. Waah! Hey, Janet, they won't cover the liposuction I need to remove the fat from my belly, either. She then goes on to compare being pregnant to prostate and testicular cancer. But pregnancy, like belly fat, can be prevented without health care involvement. Please tell us how to prevent prostate and testicular cancer.

Judge is doing what justice requires Re: "Gun cases tossed out, suspects walk out," Sunday: As a former Philadelphia prosecutor and current criminal-defense attorney, I have had the pleasure of appearing in front of Judge Paula A. Patrick on many occasions. She is a hardworking, fair-minded, and even-handed criminal trial judge who tries extremely hard to do what justice requires. Your headline and innuendo are neither supported by legitimate empirical evidence nor even an understanding of how American jurisprudence works.

Two Camden police officers assigned to protect some of the city's most drug-infested neighborhoods instead used their badges to break the law, according to a nine-count federal indictment unsealed Thursday. Officers Antonio Figueroa, 34, and Robert Bayard, 32, were charged with stealing drugs and money from narcotics dealers, planting evidence, conducting illegal searches, falsifying police reports, and lying under oath. The two, arrested Thursday morning, pleaded not guilty at preliminary hearings in U.S. District Court in Camden.

THE ONLY thing I hate about the Fightin' Phils being in their fourth straight playoffs is that we are again going to have to endure those snide and inane remarks perpetrated by the national sports news media! Can they be more insulting to the Phillies? Does someone off camera have to hold a gun to their heads for them to say anything complimentary about our team? They would rather wax poetically gleeful about the opposing team's bat boy than give the respect due the Phillies. By the way, how many others of this year's crop of postseason contenders have done it four straight?

Two Philadelphia police officers were arrested Monday evening and charged with robbing an undercover investigator posing as a drug dealer, authorities said today. Officers Sean Alivera, 31, and Christopher Luciano, 23, allegedly stole 20 pounds of marijuana and $3,000 in cash. Both officers, who were partners assigned to the 25th District, were arrested at the district headquarters. They were still in custody this morning, after being charged with robbery, kidnapping, conspiracy and other crimes.