Cops wonder: What next?

03/25/2007

NEW HAVEN — The cloud hanging over the Police Department since the FBI arrested two narcotics officers might not dissipate for months or longer if a grand jury is empaneled as expected. Inside police headquarters, overwhelming sentiment among officers is this: If more arrests are coming, get it over with so the department can move forward.

But the reality is that FBI probes, particularly when grand juries are involved, can be an exhaustive, time-consuming process.

"All you need to look at is the (Gov. John G.) Rowland investigation. How long did that take before it played out?" said Stanley Twardy Jr., a former U.S. attorney for Connecticut. "The government is in no hurry here. They’re going to track down and follow up every lead they have here."

How long will the federal probe last? "I think it’s going to take a while and I think the water will just get hotter and hotter," he said.

The water is plenty hot already among officers and it’s been less than two weeks since the FBI barged into police headquarters, seized hand carts full of evidence from the narcotics enforcement unit and arrested Lt. William "Billy" White, 63, a 39-year veteran, and one of his detectives.

Since then, the union office has been full every day with people wondering what’s next as speculation, innuendo and rumors circulate at a frenetic pace.

"It’s like going into work every single day and you say, ‘Hey, did anybody get arrested today? Were the feds in today?" said Sgt. Louis G. Cavaliere, the union president. "We’re not getting anything. It’s a big secret. The problem is a number of people, over the years, worked in this unit ...It’s speculation. Everyone is looking at everyone who worked in the unit for the last three or four years and not looking at them as suspects — but as potential suspects."

The atmosphere has left the department an uncomfortable place to work.

"It’s the waiting game. If there is something else out there, just come out with it," Cavaliere said.

Even if some arrests were to occur sooner, the investigation likely is nowhere near complete, both police and legal experts agree.

Adding to the anxiety is the nature of the federal grand jury, where proceedings unfold in secret and the investigative power of the federal government is brought to bare.

The expectation by all is that a grand jury will be convened in this case, if it hasn’t been already.

Where that might lead is impossible to say.

In the 1990s, the FBI launched an investigation into corruption at the Hartford Police Department.

The probe was initiated to investigate allegations that Hartford police officers killed a homeless man and dumped the body in Massachusetts, said civil rights attorney Norman Pattis, who later became involved in litigation resulting from the probe.

No arrests resulted from that angle, but grand jury testimony prompted the investigation to branch out to include allegations of police theft and later allegations that cops were coercing prostitutes for sex while on duty. Six officers were implicated.

That means, hypothetically, that this probe could expand beyond confines of the now disbanded drug squad.

"Investigations can go in all sorts of directions that not even the investigators themselves were aware of at the beginning of the process," said Jeffrey Meyer, an assistant U.S. attorney from 1995 to 2004 who now teaches at Quinnipiac Law School.

A probable cause hearing has been scheduled for April 2 for White and Detective Justen Kasperzyk, 34, a 12-year veteran, who were arrested on a criminal complaint on March 13. White is charged with theft and bribery counts. Kasperzyk is charged with theft.

Federal probable cause hearings are uncommon, however, and the hearing would be preempted if the two officers are indicted first by a grand jury, Meyer said.

"The ordinary practice of the government is to supersede a criminal complaint with a grand jury indictment."

There’s a strategic value to that for prosecutors, since probable cause hearings are open proceedings and defense attorneys would be able cross-examine government witnesses.

In a grand jury, defense attorneys are not allowed to be present.

As the corruption probe unfolds, police Chief Francisco Ortiz Jr. has met with the rank-and-file at roll calls in an effort, he said, to reassure and update officers and bolster morale. The vast majority of officers on the job are hard-working, honest professionals, he said, who have nothing of which to be ashamed.

Remaining members of the narcotics enforcement unit were transferred to other assignments and additional moves are expected this week.

"We’re not going to turn this building upside down," Ortiz said.

With the prospect of additional arrests, Ortiz was careful to say the transfers should not be viewed as a reflection on any officers. He also expected a long process as the federal probe unfolds.

The whole ordeal has the police union rankled.

Cavaliere said the "FBI crashed into our house unannounced" and is leaving the department in the dark, not even keeping Ortiz or Mayor John DeStefano Jr. in the loop.

"We’re law enforcement people. It’s like the feds, they’re treating us like some flop house."

Tom Carson, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office, declined comment on any timetable for the investigation or whether a grand jury had been empaneled to investigate.

As investigations drag on, they take a toll on officers.

Hartford Police Officer Richard Rodriguez, the union president there, had a few years on the job when the federal probe of his department unfolded.

"It really hampers on the officers’ effectiveness to deal with the community," he said. "It’s a cloud that every officer in the department would not want and it’s one that they hope would get resolved."

The question in his mind in corruption cases always is whether the alleged conduct is an individual or systemic breakdown.

"If it’s a systemic breakdown of the police department, then it’s a breakdown that starts at the top," he said.

For now, all officers of the New Haven force can do is wait because the government most likely isn’t in a rush.

"The government, by keeping the heat up, the water starts to boil and things happen. The strategy often is to let things play out over time, to let people start feeling pressure," Twardy said.

How far the investigation will spread or whether it will stop with two cops is impossible to say, but guilty consciences are doing a lot of soul searching right now, Pattis said.

"There are a lot of nervous cops making phones calls right now, and some of them might be people wanting to go to the feds first in exchange for immunity or leniency," said Pattis.

It’s a shame, he said, because the department and city worked so hard to establish community policing and this could be a difficult setback.

"The idea that this nightmare will end anytime in the near futures is foolishness," he said.

William Kaempffer can be reached at wkaempffer@nhregister.com or 789-5727