12462: NY Times; Schwarz Unlikely to Appear (Louima Assault Case) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JD Lemieux <lxhaiti@yahoo.com>


NY Times

July 3, 2002
Schwarz Unlikely to Testify as Defense Prepares to Rest
By WILLIAM GLABERSON


harles Schwarz's defense in the Abner Louima torture case
is preparing to rest today, apparently without calling Mr.
Schwarz to the witness stand.

After the court session yesterday, the chief defense
lawyer, Ronald P. Fischetti, said he did not expect to call
Mr. Schwarz, "but I'd like to confirm that and speak to
him" during the evening.

The defense has left open the possibility of calling Mr.
Schwarz, who testified at the last of his two prior trials
two years ago. A decision not to call him would underscore
a narrowing of the defense's focus to raising enough doubts
about the prosecutors' claims to justify an acquittal.

In an energetic public relations effort over many months,
Mr. Fischetti had at times suggested he would be presenting
a much broader defense including new police and other
witnesses who had never been heard from before.

Mr. Schwarz is facing two civil rights charges for
assisting Justin A. Volpe in the assault of Mr. Louima. He
also faces two perjury charges in connection with his
testimony in 2000.

In addition to Mr. Fischetti's acknowledgment that he may
not call Mr. Schwarz, the defense pared down its
presentation in several other ways yesterday. Mr. Fischetti
announced that he would not call two former lawyers for Mr.
Louima who, according to defense filings, had said they had
doubts about whether the prosecutors had the right
defendant when they filed charges against Mr. Schwarz.

The defense also said yesterday that it would make no
effort to introduce a statement by Mr. Schwarz's partner on
the night of the attack in August 1997, Thomas Wiese.

Speaking to investigators in 1997, Mr. Wiese contended that
he, and not Mr. Schwarz, was in the station house bathroom
where Mr. Volpe sodomized Mr. Louima with a broken
broomstick. On Monday, Mr. Fischetti had said he had been
told by the lawyer for Mr. Wiese that he would not take the
stand.

The decisions about Mr. Wiese's statement and the
possibility that Mr. Schwarz may not take the stand helped
explain the defense's emerging strategy. With the brief
testimony of eight people yesterday, the defense suggested
to the jury that witnesses have raised questions about many
of the prosecution's central assertions.

One defense witness yesterday contradicted a police
sergeant's claim that Mr. Schwarz left the front desk of
the station house at the same time as Mr. Volpe. Another
indicated that one police informer may have confused Mr.
Schwarz and Mr. Wiese. The testimony of a third suggested
that another police informer may have cooperated with
investigators for fear that he would be implicated because
he lent Mr. Volpe a pair of gloves.

"Our theory of defense is there was a rush to judgment
here," one of the defense lawyers, Diarmuid White, said to
the judge, Reena Raggi of United States District Court in
Brooklyn. Mr. White, who spoke while the jury was not
present, said the defense was working to rebut the
implication of the prosecution that a so-called blue wall
of silence had hurt investigators. To the contrary, Mr.
White said, the defense argues that investigators focused
on Mr. Schwarz prematurely and then urged witnesses to
support their conclusion.

Lawyers often acknowledge that there are great risks in
having a defendant take the stand. But some of them say
that jurors expect to hear from a defendant who, like Mr.
Schwarz, asserts that he is completely innocent of any
involvement in the charges. Mr. Schwarz testified at his
last trial that he remained at the station house's main
desk after Mr. Volpe took Mr. Louima away. He said he then
left the front desk and the station house to inspect his
patrol car while the assault took place.

But, with Mr. Schwarz standing silently behind him in a
courthouse hallway yesterday, Mr. Fischetti bristled at the
suggestion that Mr. Schwarz would not be called today
because he had been an ineffective witness two years ago.
Then, Mr. Fischetti suggested that the prosecutors had
hamstrung Mr. Schwarz's ability to take the stand to defend
himself. "You could recall," Mr. Fischetti said, "that he
testified he was innocent the last time and not at the desk
and he was indicted for perjury for saying that."



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