12451: Police Torture (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By TOM HAYS

   NEW YORK, July 1 (AP) -- The disgraced ex-patrolman who tortured Abner
Louima in a police station bathroom testified Monday that a second officer
accused of joining in the 1997 assault was never there.
   Justin Volpe told a jury that Thomas Wiese -- not defendant Charles
Schwarz -- was with him when he took Louima into the 70th Precinct
bathroom.
   "Wiese was right there," Volpe said after being called as the first
defense witness at Schwarz's retrial in federal court.
   During cross-examination, the prosecution sought to discredit Volpe by
confronting him with a jailhouse tape.
   Volpe, 30, who is serving a 30-year term, could be heard using curse
words to describe Schwarz and ranting about deserving a reduced sentence
for "falling on the sword again."
   "I'm thinking to myself, 'What am I doing here and (Schwarz) is at
home?'" Volpe told his father, a retired detective, in the telephone
conversation. Volpe later referred to Schwarz as someone who tried to
"wreck" his life.
   Schwarz, 36, was convicted in 1999 on civil rights charges, but the
conviction was tossed out earlier this year by a federal appeals court that
found his lawyer did not defend him adequately and that the jury was
tainted by news reports.
   Volpe's testimony Monday contradicted that of Louima, who identified the
second officer as the driver of the patrol car that took him to the police
station following a street disturbance. Records show the driver was
Schwarz.
   The Haitian immigrant testified that the driver put his foot on his
mouth to quiet him while Volpe sodomized him with a broken broomstick,
tearing his rectum and bladder.
   On Monday, Volpe said that -- after getting punched to the ground during
a fight with Louima on the street -- he alone assaulted him in a fit of
rage. Louima has denied striking Volpe; charges against him were dropped.
   "I was mad," Volpe said, taking deep breaths. "I couldn't think
straight. I was very charged up."
   After torturing the handcuffed prisoner, "I leaned down and put the
stick in his face and said, 'Look what you made me do,'" Volpe said.
   Volpe, 30, testified that Wiese stood by the door the entire time -- a
claim prosecutor Alan Vinegrad challenged on cross-examination. The
government has argued it would have been physically impossible for a single
assailant to both restrain and sodomize Louima.
   "Isn't it a fact, sir, that while you were sodomizing Mr. Louima ...
Charles Schwarz was holding him?" Vinegrad asked.
   "No, it is not a fact," Volpe said.
   Volpe also denied Vinegrad's charge that his testimony was concocted "to
protect a former colleague."
   The appeals court threw out the obstruction-of-justice convictions of
Wiese and another officer, who were accused of covering up the crime.
   Wiese's attorney, Joseph Tacopina, said Monday that his client would not
take the stand because of fears prosecutors would use his testimony to
charge him with perjury.