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| NEWS > 15 March 2007 |
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IRAQI CHIEF BRANDS POLICE 'DIS
AN Iraqi police chief last night said he cannot trust one third of his officers because they back the militias.
General Abdul Hussein Al Saffe, head of policing in the southern Dhi Qhar province, said many of his force were disloyal – but that they could not be sacked due to political protection.
Another senior officer said he had been forced for political and tribal reasons to hire up to 400 officers who were illiterate.
Brigadier General Ghalib al Jaza’aere said one policeman had to be sacked after he was caught smuggling weapons to be used against British tr... Read more
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 Article sourced from
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New Haven Register - New Haven
15 March 2007
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
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New Haven Police Department, C
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Grand jury expected to be conv
NEW HAVEN — The police chief told city leaders Wednesday that he expects a federal grand jury to be convened to investigate alleged corruption at the department, and the rank-and-file to expect more arrests of police officers in the wake of the theft and bribery scandal that rocked the department this week.
He expects the number of arrests to be less than 10.
At a briefing of aldermen, police Chief Francisco Ortiz Jr. said he will disband the department’s 11-member Narcotics Enforcement Unit, which has been the focus of an ongoing Federal Bureau of Investigation probe that included an undercover cop who cooperated with federal authorities.
The squad’s leader, Lt. William "Billy" White, 63, and a second detective, Justen Kasperzyk, 34, were arrested Tuesday as part of the FBI sting.
Ortiz said the unit will be shut down Friday and investigations will be turned over to the state police Statewide Narcotics Task Force and detectives and patrol officers in other units.
Meanwhile, law enforcement sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed the unnamed "undercover employee" who assisted the FBI was a member of the statewide task force. He first alerted the FBI about alleged corruption last summer and then cooperated with the probe by wearing a listening device and recording nearly 200 conversations with White and others.
At City Hall, Ortiz told the aldermen that he planned to visit community meetings around the city to try to ensure or restore public trust in the suddenly beleaguered department.
More privately, Ortiz addressed patrol officers at morning roll calls Wednesday in an effort to shore up sagging morale.
According to several officers, the chief told them that more officers will be charged.
"He said more arrests were expected, and not just of active officers," said one cop, who took that to mean that some retired officers also might be under scrutiny.
The chief also told officers to expect a major shakeup of personnel. He already has pledged to assign a lieutenant to oversee the detective bureau, which has been run by a sergeant since last year. More wholesale changes are expected.
When the narcotics squad is shut down, drug investigations will be handled by the statewide narcotics agency; the state police Reclaim Our Cities and Connecticut Youth agency; and the Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI task forces, all of which already have a presence in New Haven, Ortiz said.
He pledged that the level of drug investigations would not be compromised, but admitted that White’s arrest could affect past cases.
The chief said both the New Haven state’s attorney’s office and a number of defense attorneys will be reviewing past convictions involving White to determine whether those convictions need to be reviewed or overturned.
Ortiz said the lawyers would be looking at the "credibility and integrity of his (White’s) work" on those cases.
But he dodged questions about how many cases, if any, might now be overturned because of White’s involvement in them.
The mood was somber at New Haven Police Headquarters at 1 Union Ave., the site of the FBI raid Tuesday, as officers waited and speculated about who would next be arrested.
Word spread around the department all day of supposed raids of retired cops’ homes and FBI contacts with retired and active cops. The information of the additional raids could not be independently confirmed.
The role of a statewide narcotics officer as the undercover investigator, however, adds an interesting twist to the case.
Under White’s tenure, New Haven’s drug squad rarely worked with the statewide task force and the mutual disdain between White and state police Sgt. Blake Stine, the commanding officer of the task force’s south central field office, was well known.
But about a year ago, the task force and New Haven’s narcotics enforcement unit suddenly started collaborating on cases again.
State Police Lt. Paul Vance confirmed that the undercover officer who discovered White’s alleged corruption was a Connecticut state trooper.
"He was a trooper working closely with the FBI though the entire time of the investigation," said Vance, who declined to comment further.
The two cops and three bail bondsmen, Robert Jacobs and his two sons, Philip and Paul, were arrested after an eight-month investigation by federal and state authorities. Federal agents raided police headquarters and several homes.
Among the accusations is that White stole about $27,000 in what he believed was drug money. In actuality, it was cash planted by the FBI in a sting. He also is accused of taking tens of thousands of dollars in bribes from the bail bondsmen in return for capturing fugitives who jumped bail.
Kasperzyk faces charges that he stole several hundred dollars he located, after a tip, in a city motel room. The FBI had planted $5,000 but only $4,640 found its way to the police property room.
On the same night the money disappeared, the FBI raided an alleged illegal gambling operation at Wooster Street’s First Independent Club. The agents found Kasperzyk there and seized $18,000 from the gaming tables, including $320 that was traced by serial numbers to the money agents had planted in the motel room.
In an earlier recorded conversation with the undercover officer, Kasperzyk said he had made $70,000 last year playing poker.
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