Ex-cop cleared on some charges, faces retrial

For the second time in six months, federal prosecutors have failed to get their man.

Malik Snell, 36, an alleged rogue Philadelphia cop, was found not guilty by a jury yesterday of using a gun in connection with an alleged robbery of a South Philadelphia drug kingpin on Dec. 14, 2007, and of threatening to kill him during a jailhouse conversation in January.

After deliberating for two days, the jury of 10 men and two women could reach no verdict on three charges related to a botched home-invasion robbery in Pottstown on Dec. 16, 2007, and a fourth charge that Snell robbed the drug dealer of $40,000 in drug proceeds.

After jurors said that they were "hopelessly deadlocked" on the four charges, U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick declared a mistrial.

Prosecutors said that there was "no question" that they would retry Snell a third time and that they would oppose any motion by Snell for bail. (Snell's first trial, last October, just on the Pottstown charges, also ended in a hung jury.)

The government subsequently filed additional charges against Snell, but prosecuting the ex-cop has proved to be a formidable challenge.

Defense attorney John McMahon said that he was happy that Snell was acquitted of two charges, and challenged prosecutors not to retry the case a third time.

"We've now had a second mistrial and two hung juries in the Pottstown case, and, hopefully, the government will take another view of this case and see the reality of their evidence," McMahon said.

McMahon said that it was clear that the jury found the testimony of government witnesses - many convicted drug dealers - "distasteful and not credible."

He said that he planned to file court papers soon to have Snell released on bail.

The jury foreman, a financial executive from Northampton County who requested anonymity, said that the credibility of government witnesses was definitely an issue.

For example, Ricardo McKendrick, Jr., the drug kingpin whom Snell was accused of robbing, testified during the trial that Snell had not brandished a gun after he pulled him over in what he thought was a police undercover car, only that he had seen a "bulge" protruding from Snell's jacket.

He had testified to the grand jury that Snell showed him a black semiautomatic handgun with a magazine clip.

"A bulge can mean anything, it's not proof of a gun," the jury foreman said.

He said that four witnesses testified that Snell threatened to kill McKendrick and another drug dealer whom he suspected of cooperating with the feds. "There were four different stories and no one was compelling," the juror said.

He said that jurors also had reservations about the credibility of Snell, who testified in his own defense.

Prosecutors introduced evidence that there were at least 16 phone calls to and from Snell's cellphone and another number prior to and immediately after the McKendrick robbery, and that Snell's cell phone pinged off a cell tower a few blocks from the scene of the robbery near Dickinson and Water streets, South Philadelphia.

But the jury foreman said that that wasn't proof beyond a reasonable doubt. "The cell-phone records put [Snell] in the vicinity of the robbery but not at the site of the robbery," he said.

A second juror said that a majority of jurors leaned toward guilty verdicts on conspiracy, robbery and gun charges in connection with the attempted Pottstown robbery, but against a guilty verdict on the alleged McKendrick robbery.

Authorities said that Snell, an 11-year veteran who worked in the 18th Police District, in West Philadelphia, until he was fired last year, used his badge, gun and a tricked-up Dodge Intrepid that appeared to be a police undercover car to target suspected drug dealers, pull them over and rob them of their drugs and/or cash. *