Pubdate: Fri, 18 Jan 2002
Source: Orlando Sentinel (FL)
Copyright: 2002 Orlando Sentinel
Contact:  http://www.orlandosentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/325
Author: Ivan Roman

DID JUDGES AID DRUG DEALERS?

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- The island's police-corruption scandal widened 
dramatically Thursday with 23 more officers indicted on charges of 
protecting drug dealers and traffickers, and news that the web of bribes 
may have spilled over into the court system.

So far, more than 60 police officers have been charged in drug-related 
investigations since August.

The officers caught in Operation Blue Shame in the southern city of Ponce 
are charged with protecting drug buys, returning seized cocaine and heroin 
to dealers, lying to prosecutors to thwart cases, selling stolen guns and 
drugs, and helping to hide dealers during drug stings.

But acting Assistant U.S. Attorney Guillermo Gil said what worried him even 
more were the lies, delay tactics and administrative maneuvering that 
apparently put some prosecutors and judges in collusion with the street thugs.

Gil said he had no jurisdiction to charge the judges and prosecutors. But 
he did write letters to local justice and court officials asking them to 
investigate three judges, a marshal and two prosecutors for acts that 
surfaced during the police probe.

In a news conference Thursday, he said he had informed the Puerto Rico 
Supreme Court about an incriminating tape of one judge "in which he admits 
he has accepted payments from lawyers and bail bondsmen, and he asks for 
more right then and there."

Puerto Rico Justice Secretary Anabelle Rodriguez said she will immediately 
investigate the two prosecutors who are under suspicion.

The federal police probe began in August 2000, five months before Rodriguez 
came on board. But authorities have been monitoring the suspected 
prosecutors and judges to make sure no significant damage was done to any 
important cases.

The latest bombshell involving the police comes during a week in which 
citizen anger over public corruption scandals hit a fever pitch.

As a former House speaker charged with extortion and money laundering 
walked out of the Capitol for good Monday, Puerto Ricans learned about 
another investigation into kickback allegations against a mayor and a 
former education secretary.

The fallout from former Education Secretary Victor Fajardo's alleged 
extortion schemes, now being investigated by a federal grand jury, not only 
touches more people in the previous administration of Gov. Pedro Rossello 
but also is tainting the New Progressive Party itself.

"This situation here is very serious," political analyst Marco Antonio 
Rigau told irate listeners on the radio Thursday. "The information about 
more corruption just keeps on coming so much, I don't know where to start."

Thursday's arrests added to the growing number of police officers charged 
with protecting drug shipments or helping cocaine distribution in some manner.

Twenty-nine officers were put behind bars in Operation Lost Honor on Aug. 
14. In terms of the numbers of officers involved, it was the largest police 
anti-corruption sting in FBI history.

Those officers were caught on tape, sometimes in uniform and in their 
patrol cars, protecting drug shipments from intervention by rival drug 
gangs or other police.

One police technician was seen and heard advising an informant, who was 
posing as a drug dealer, about the best way to dispose of a body and avoid 
detection.

Not as many officers are involved in Operation Blue Shame. But Gil 
considers the case much more serious because, he said, drug dealers paid 
officers to lie to prosecutors, give false testimony and to release people 
they should have arrested.

They also were paid to skip trials, therefore forcing cases to expire, he said.

In exchange for cash, investigators said, officers also returned drugs that 
had been seized in raids, lied to help suspects get released from jail and 
let suspects hide during a drug sting.

Some also stole guns from third parties and sold them while others stole 
drugs from a drug-trafficking organization and sold it back to the dealers. 
Individual payments ranged from $500 to $12,000.

Although not charged in this case, prosecutors and judges are suspected of 
delaying trials, misplacing motions, giving "preferential treatment" to 
cases handled by certain criminal lawyers and other actions, short of 
overtly throwing cases, to make it more difficult to secure convictions.

Associate Supreme Court Judge Francisco Rebollo Lopez announced late 
Thursday afternoon that he had temporarily relieved two of the judges 
pending an investigation.

Federal agents arrested all but one of the 23 police officers and suspect 
the missing officer may be somewhere in New Jersey. The leader of one of 
the drug-trafficking rings also is at large.

Operation Blue Shame is the latest embarrassment to hit the 19,000- member 
Puerto Rico Police Department, where a combination of low pay, poor working 
conditions and lax recruitment are blamed, in part, for enticing police to 
succumb to the growing drug trade.

More than 40 percent of the cocaine entering the United States comes 
through Puerto Rico. A quarter of it stays on the island, feeding 
increasingly competitive and violent drug-distribution networks.

The department's new police superintendent, Miguel Pereira, called 
Thursday's arrests part of the effort to purge and reform the huge agency.

Just this week, he revamped the mostly dormant internal-affairs division 
and brought in top-ranking civilians on staff to direct the investigation 
of complaints. For the first time in the department's history, he also is 
establishing a Civilian Review Board.

"Although this sting brings us shame, it also brings a sense of being 
reborn," Pereira said. "Governor Sila Calderon's message is clear -- that 
there is no tolerance and there will be no tolerance for anyone who has 
committed these corrupt acts."

Pereira immediately suspended the indicted officers. For Pereira, the 
arrests drove home the need for better screening of police candidates.

The news this week turned up the temperature:

Rodriguez recommended that a special prosecutor investigate a $750,000 
payment that former education secretary Fajardo is accused of demanding 
from a supplier in October 2000 to be used in the New Progressive Party's 
failed election campaign. The check, investigators say, was deposited into 
a shell company run by his sister-in-law and his daughter.

Witnesses paraded before a federal grand jury this week to look at this and 
other transactions. Fajardo, also a former deputy chief of staff in 
Rossello's administration, is said to be cooperating with federal authorities.

Former House Speaker Edison Misla Aldarondo left the Capitol after a 
25-year legislative career to face federal extortion, money-laundering and 
witness-tampering charges in connection with the sale of a public hospital 
in Manati.

Misla, a New Progressive Party veteran and national Republican committeeman 
until his indictment, is accused of being paid for his influence in 
securing the hospital sale for a group of doctors and businessmen, which 
included a high-school friend.

A panel of judges appointed a special prosecutor Wednesday to investigate 
allegations that Hormigueros Mayor Francisco Rivera Toro accepted a 
$100,000 bribe from a company hired to clean up debris after Hurricane 
Georges in 1998. Rivera Toro, who belongs to the governing Popular 
Democratic Party, also is accused of instructing staff to erase all mention 
of the contract from computers.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom