Defense begins its assault in trial of ex-narcs

IN NEAR-RAPID-FIRE succession, veteran defense attorney Jack McMahon called to the stand yesterday nine witnesses - including FBI agents and police brass - to show that prosecution witnesses at times lied or may have lied and that the ex-cops on trial had the support of higher-ups.

McMahon began his assault by calling as his first two witnesses FBI special agents who were key investigators in the case against the ex-narcotics cops on trial.

He ended the day with two police supervisors, Chief Inspector Christopher Werner and 5th District Capt. John Cerrone, who said they did not know of anything improper done by the cops.

The six ex-cops on trial - alleged ringleader Thomas Liciardello, Brian Reynolds, Michael Spicer, Perry Betts, Linwood Norman and John Speiser - are accused of robbing suspected drug dealers when they were on duty.

Werner, chief inspector of the Training and Education Services Bureau, was captain of the Narcotics Bureau in February 2006, when the first alleged incident of wrongdoing listed in the indictment against the cops began.

On Feb. 28, 2006, plainclothes cops raided the home of Rodolfo Blanco, above his Frankford barbershop. The feds allege Liciardello and others kidnapped Blanco and kept him in a hotel room by Philadelphia International Airport for nearly a week against his will, forcing him to set up drug deals so they could arrest others.

Werner said what the cops did was proper and that Blanco willingly cooperated.

"Was he ever held against his will?" McMahon asked.

"Absolutely not," Werner said.

Werner said he was not at the raid of Blanco's home, but later learned that the squad wanted to use Blanco as a confidential informant. It was Werner who signed a memo to Internal Affairs saying the narcotics squad was using Blanco as an informant.

Werner said he likely met Blanco at a police facility, where Blanco would have been fingerprinted and his background checked before he was taken to the hotel.

Keeping Blanco in a hotel so his calls could be monitored and he could set up drug deals required overtime paid to cops watching him and the expense of the hotel room itself, Werner said. For such expenses, he said he would have gotten approval from his then-inspector, Aaron Horne, and "based on my practice," would have informed the deputy district attorney assigned to narcotics.

Under cross-examination, Assistant U.S. Attorney Maureen McCartney asked Werner if Blanco would have been free to leave the hotel if he wanted to.

"He could have ended that by saying, 'I don't want to cooperate anymore,' " Werner testified.

Werner said he was also present for "at most an hour" during the Nov. 26, 2007, arrest and search of admitted drug-dealer Michael Cascioli's 19th-floor penthouse in the Executive House Apartments on City Avenue.

Asked by McMahon what he recalled happening then, Werner said "nothing unusual." While cops were searching the apartment, Werner said, he believed Cascioli "was sitting on a sofa."

Cascioli previously testified that later that night, Norman and Walker, under Liciardello's orders, lifted him off his feet on his outside balcony, making him think they were going to drop him over the railing, to get him to give up details of where he kept more than $400,000 in cash.

Walker, arrested in a 2013 FBI sting, has pleaded guilty and has been cooperating with the feds.

Cerrone, whose district covers Roxborough and Manayunk, said he allowed the narcotics squad to use the 5th District's holding cells to temporarily hold prisoners during narcotics investigations. He said Werner had first requested the use of the cells.

Robert Kushner, a marijuana dealer in 2007, testified about a month ago as the first prosecution witness in the trial that Liciardello, Reynolds and Walker put him overnight in a 5th District cell after stopping him in their unmarked vehicle on Ridge Avenue and then threatening him.

Kushner contended that while he was in the holding cell, the cops went to his apartment and stole a safe with $80,000 inside.

Earlier yesterday, McMahon, who is Reynolds' attorney, first called to the witness stand FBI Special Agent Denis Drum, then Special Agent Joseph Balestrieri.

With Drum on the stand, McMahon brought out that some supervisors and officers who were present at some of the episodes of alleged wrongdoing in the indictment were not interviewed by the FBI until after the six cops were charged. McMahon has contended the government's investigation was not thorough.

McMahon also showed jurors parts of the agents' notes and summaries of interviews they had with Walker in the first few weeks after his arrest.

In one interview summary, Drum wrote "Walker never planted drugs on anyone."

Walker, who testified in the trial, said he had planted drugs on others many times. Drum and Balestrieri admitted Walker initially lied about things he did, but said he eventually came clean about his wrongdoings.