a967: Convictions of Three Overturned in Louima Case: Slightly different version

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Robert Benodin <r.benodin@worldnet.att.net>

Convictions of Three Overturned in Louima Case
Insufficient Evidence Cited; At Least One New Trial Ordered
By Larry Neumeister
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, February 28, 2002; 1:03 PM
NEW YORK –– A federal appeals court overturned the convictions of three
white police officers in the Abner Louima torture case Thursday, finding
insufficient evidence they obstructed justice.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the convictions of Charles
Schwarz, Thomas Wiese and Thomas Bruder. The ruling does not affect the
conviction of the chief attacker, Justin Volpe.
Louima, a black Haitian immigrant, was tortured in a police station bathroom
following his arrest in a melee outside a Brooklyn nightclub Aug. 9, 1997.
Prosecutors said a handcuffed Louima was pinned down and assaulted in one of
the worst police brutality cases in U.S. history. Charges against Louima
were later dropped.
Volpe is serving 30 years in prison after admitting he sodomized Louima with
a broken broomstick. Volpe's appeal was earlier rejected.
Louima suffered a ruptured bladder and colon and spent two months in the
hospital.
The appeals court said Schwarz's convictions for civil rights violations
must be thrown out and a new trial ordered because he was denied effective
assistance of counsel and because the jury was exposed to prejudicial
information during deliberations.
"The jurors asserted that despite their best efforts to avoid publicity they
had learned from one juror during jury deliberations that Volpe had pleaded
guilty to assaulting Louima in the bathroom and had indicated that he had
done this assault with another police officer," the ruling stated.
The court also held that convictions against all three men at a second trial
for conspiracy to obstruct justice must be dismissed for insufficient
evidence. It was not immediately clear whether prosecutors would seek new
trials in those cases.
The government failed to prove that the defendants intended to obstruct a
federal grand jury, the court ruled. The three-judge panel said the
government relied nearly exclusively on Bruder's allegedly false statements
to federal investigators.
But Bruder did not know the statements would be repeated to a federal grand
jury, the court found. Thus, the judges said, there is insufficient evidence
to support a conspiracy.
"It's a sweet day when you can show the government was wrong and it was
wrong from the beginning," said Stuart London, Bruder's attorney.
Schwarz was sentenced in June to 15 1/2 years; Wiese and Bruder received
five-year sentences for the conspiracy conviction but have been free on bond
pending appeal.
Schwarz and Volpe were tried for conspiracy to deprive Louima of his civil
rights by sexually assaulting him while Schwarz, Bruder and Wiese faced
conspiracy to obstruct justice charges in a separate trial.
Civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton called the ruling "a shocking
display of how the judicial system continues to fail to protect citizens
from police abuse." He said the court "in effect says that Volpe acted alone
when that is not only not the evidence, but physically impossible."
Sanford Rubenstein, a lawyer for Louima, said that if there is a new trial
for Schwarz, "we look to the federal government to retry the case and we
will be supportive of their efforts as we have in the past."
Joseph Tacopina, attorney for Wiese, said: "Justice has been served. It was
clearly the right decision. Hopefully now Thomas Wiese, Thomas Bruder and
Charles Schwarz can resume their normal lives with this and even possibly
return to the force."
Zachary Carter, the former U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case, declined
to comment, as did the New York Police Department.
A telephone call to Schwarz's lawyers was not immediately returned.
In their appeal, lawyers for Schwarz had argued that his attorney in both
trials had a conflict of interest as he also represented the police union,
thereby hindering him from deflecting blame to another officer.
The Louima case and other high-profile incidents – including the 1999 death
of an unarmed West African immigrant, Amadou Diallo, in a hail of 41 bullet
fired by four white officers – ignited protests accusing police of singling
out minorities for abuse, often through racial-profiling.
Louima filed a lawsuit against the city and the police union, which was
settled in July after months of hard-fought negotiations. The city and union
agreed to pay Louima and his lawyers $8.7 million in the largest settlement
ever in a New York City police brutality case.