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Ronnie Polaneczky: How many inmates are victims of dirty cops?

I GET A LETTER a week from convicted prisoners asking me to look into their cases. It's usually impossible to separate the skilled connivers from the truly wronged.

Philadelphia Police officers Christopher Luciano, left, and Sean Alivera, right, have been charged with robbing a an undercover investigator posing as a drug dealer.
Philadelphia Police officers Christopher Luciano, left, and Sean Alivera, right, have been charged with robbing a an undercover investigator posing as a drug dealer.Read more

I GET A LETTER a week

from convicted prisoners asking me to look into their cases. It's usually impossible to separate the skilled connivers from the truly wronged.

But not from the partially railroaded. One inmate, for instance, told me that he was doing time for seven burglaries. "I did five of them," he confessed, "but the cops gave me two more. I didn't do those ones."

It's hard to doubt that kind of rough honesty.

In many of the letters, the desperation radiates off the page like heat. Just look at the records, they beg. Talk with the people who never got to testify. You'll see that I'm innocent.

Is he? Isn't he? In almost every case, the only way to know would be to obtain court transcripts, unearth documents, hunt down witnesses, talk with judges or coax an expert into examining the mess and rendering an opinion.

And after all that, it might end up that I'd been played for a fool anyway, by a guilty inmate with nothing but time on his hands and hope that a gullible outsider would somehow spin his baloney into freedom.

Sometimes, if it looks as though I could get to the bottom of an allegation without needing to hire a team of legal experts to guide me, I'll give it a try. But most often, lacking the time, money or law degree to launch an inquisition, I'm forced to pass.

And I send the inmate a reply that goes something like this:

"I'm so sorry to hear of your misfortune. Sadly, I don't have the resources to investigate your case, which does not mean it doesn't merit investigation. This paper just doesn't have the means to allow me to do so. I apologize and wish you good luck."

I know it's the best I can do. But these days, I feel queasy offering only luck when, odds are, at least some of the writers are innocent and corrupt forces might have indeed conspired to put them behind bars.

I've been sifting again through those letters (I save a lot of them) since the arrest this week of two more Philadelphia police officers on corruption charges.

Sean Alivera and Christopher Luciano, partners in the 25th District, allegedly stole 20 pounds of marijuana and $3,000 in cash from an undercover cop. They join a growing and despicable fraternity of uniformed perps who differ from the street thugs they chase only in that their guns are registered.

My colleague Stephanie Farr talked with the sister of Alivera, who said he was broke, struggling mightily to support his wife and two kids. She believes his financial burdens did him in.

"He really, really begged me for the money to pay his mortgage, and I said no," Shannon Lantz said. "I wish I gave it to him. This probably would have never happened."

Lantz sounds like one heartbroken sibling. But I hope she stops beating herself up. Her brother is a 31-year-old man, not a child, responsible for his own actions.

Besides, the investigation is young. God knows if the phony drug bust Alivera is accused of perpetrating with Luciano was their first, or only their latest decision to corrupt the power of the badge.

How many more Aliveras and Lucianos are out there?

Reviewing just a handful of the letters that prisoners have written me over the past year, I've found four that allege police corruption. I have no idea if the accusations are true. But, given the corruption arrests of the past year, you tell me if they don't give you pause the way they now do me:

One mentions a drug-dealing cop with such a vendetta against the inmate, the cop pinned a shooting on him.

A second alleges that cops instigated an incident with him, then charged him with aggravated assault.

Another relates how a cop, long known as a "problem officer" by the Police Department's Internal Affairs Bureau, planted drugs on him then arrested him.

And a fourth tells how a "bored" cop fabricated a phony 9-1-1 call in order to pull him over and finger him for a crime he didn't commit.

A year ago, I'd have felt bad for these letter-writers, but resigned, as always, at my inability to determine whether their stories were true or false. Now, I just feel angry.

Last month, a clearly alarmed Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey announced plans to stamp out corruption in the force. His plans involve ethics training for officers, new hiring standards for officers, better ways for officers to report misbehavior and the transfer of 26 officers to Internal Affairs.

I hope it works. Because wishing someone "good luck" just isn't good enough.

E-mail polaner@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2217. For recent columns:

http://go.philly.com/polaneczky. Read Ronnie's blog at http://go.philly. com/ ronnieblog.