Cops plead guilty in FBI sting

10/06/2007

By William Kaempffer , Register Staff

Two former New Haven narcotics detectives stood in court Friday, hours apart, and raised their right hands like they had many times before, but this time they weren't on the witness stand.

Instead, Justen Kasperzyk, 35, pleaded guilty to planting drugs during a 2006 raid and Jose R. Silva, 36, to knowing about it and lying in a police report. Both face jail time when they are sentenced Jan. 4.

Mayor John DeStefano Jr. described their conduct as nothing short of "despicable" and not representative of the 400-plus officers on the city force.

The two pleas are the first in the 15-month federal corruption case into the department's narcotics enforcement unit. Charges are still pending against the headline defendant, former Lt. William "Billy" White, the one-time head of the unit and 39-year member of the force, and three bail bondsmen who allegedly paid cops tens-of-thousands of dollars in kickbacks for capturing fugitives who jumped bond.

A source said White could plead guilty as soon as next week.
For his role, Kasperzyk, a 12-year member of the force, pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights charge and theft of government funds for stealing $360 of $5,000 planted by the FBI in a city hotel room as part of a sting. He and White were fired in April, a month after agents stunned the department when they came to police headquarters March 13 and arrested them.

As part of the plea agreement, Kasperzyk faces a recommended sentence of 18 to 24 months, although the judge is not bound by it, and a fine of $4,000 to $40,000.
Silva, also a 12-year veteran, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor civil rights count and faces up to a year in jail. He had been on active duty until Friday, when he waived indictment and pleaded guilty in his first court appearance. Later in the day, Chief Francisco Ortiz Jr. placed Silva on paid administrative leave pending a termination hearing before the Board of Police Commissioners.

The two cops appeared two hours apart in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport before Senior District Judge Alan H. Nevas.

Kasperzyk came to court Friday already facing the theft charge. Both he and Silva waived their right to an indictment on the new civil rights violations and entered pleas to all the charges.

Kasperzyk admitted taking suspected cocaine, crack cocaine and marijuana from a common basement inside 65-67 Truman St., a multi-family house, during a November 2006 raid and moving it to the target apartment, leading to the arrest of the occupant.

Silva admitted he knew the drugs were planted, and said he wrote his police report to reflect the drugs were found on a bedroom dresser next to the suspect's identification.
Left unanswered is whether the evidence planting, which U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor described as "one of the most egregious actions a member of law enforcement can take" and one of the most troubling aspects of the case, was an isolated incident or an ongoing practice.

"When a police officer gets on the stand and says, 'This is what I did. This is what I found and this is where I found it,' you want people to be able to believe it," O'Connor said.

Federal authorities were able to uncover the scheme because they had an undercover officer in the department.
"How often would this have gone on and how often did this happen in the past? As much as I hate to admit it, it's a fair question," O'Connor said.

But O'Connor went out of his way to state his continued faith in the New Haven Police Department as a whole.
The federal probe is ongoing, and O'Connor said he wasn't prepared to say whether there will be additional arrests.
"As they say, 'Time will tell,'" he said, then added, "This is not the tip of the iceberg, in terms of we're (not) going to see dozens of people paraded in (court for charges). No one should think that that is the rule rather than the exception. We have a lot of faith in the New Haven P.D. and no matter what we do in the future, it's not going to be as widespread as people are anticipating or believing."

In court, Kasperzyk gave short answers to Nevas' questions. When it came time to admit to what he had done, he read from a piece of paper and admitted planting the drugs on Nov. 9, 2006, and stealing $1,000 in drug money from a Fillmore Street home in a March 1 raid and slipping half of it in Silva's jacket pocket.

He said he did it to support his gambling addiction, and indicated he is now in a program through gamblers anonymous.
Two hours later, Silva made his own admissions. He said he "did not participate in moving the drugs, but I did know that they were moved."

He admitted he wrote in his report that drugs were found in the first-floor bedroom "having knowledge that was not true."

Silva also acknowledged keeping the $500 Kasperzyk slipped into his pocket.

Neither was federally charged with the $1,000 theft, and New Haven State's Attorney Michael Dearington did not return a call to answer if they might be charged at the state level.

Friday afternoon, Silva met with Ortiz and the department took his gun, badge and work ID.

Ortiz declined comment, but the mayor said he understands the importance of trust between the community and its police department and "this behavior obviously raises issues in people's minds."

But he also asked the public not to judge the men and women of the department on the behavior of "these two individuals, Billy White and Julie Raymond."

Raymond, who worked under White, has admitted in a sexual harassment complaint that she accepted overtime for shifts she didn't work, but said White submitted the overtime request over her objections. An internal affairs investigation is ongoing, the mayor said, and should be concluded before the end of the month.

The suspect from the Truman Street raid, Norval Falconer, 28, was charged with drug offenses, but the charges were nolled by prosecutors two weeks after the March arrests of White and Kasperzyk.

White is charged with running a side business on city time, using members of his unit to track down fugitives who had jumped bail and taking sizeable bribes to do so. White is the only police officer to date charged in the bribery case.

He also is accused to stealing money planted by the FBI or the cooperating state police sergeant on at least two occasions, including once when he took $27,500 of what he believed was dirty money from the trunk of a car on Long Wharf. He wrote "estupido" on the empty money bag to throw off the owner so they wouldn't kill the informant who tipped them off.

The informant was fictional.