State Charges Mulled In Louima Case

New state charges could be filed in the Abner Louima police torture case if federal authorities decide against it, a prosecutor has said.

District Attorney Charles Hynes of Brooklyn said Wednesday he was prepared to file the charges despite last week's appeals court decision throwing out federal obstruction-of-justice convictions of the three officers in 2000.

Hynes said his office would be able to file charges of hindering an investigation. "I have an obligation to be aggressive when there's a violation of state law," he said.

Attorneys for the former officers — Charles Schwarz, Thomas Bruder and Thomas Wiese — said their clients cannot be tried twice for the same crime.

"The district attorney's office is way off base," said Stuart London, attorney for Bruder. "They would have a serious double-jeopardy issue. All of the facts have been litigated in federal court."

U.S. Attorney Alan Vinegrad has not said whether he will appeal the appeals court decision, file different charges or drop the case.

The three patrolmen were convicted of plotting to conceal Schwarz's role in the 1997 assault by lying to investigators. In a separate trial, Schwarz was found guilty of violating Louima's civil rights by holding the Haitian immigrant down while another officer sodomized him with a broken broomstick in the bathroom of a Brooklyn stationhouse.

Last week, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals found that federal prosecutors had failed to prove the officers conspired to obstruct a federal grand jury investigation.

The appeals court also overturned the civil rights conviction on the grounds that Schwarz was not adequately represented and ordered a new trial. Schwarz, 36, had been serving a 15-year sentence.

No new trial date for Schwarz has been set. The former officer was due in Brooklyn federal court Thursday for a hearing on whether he should be released pending trial.

"We expect to get bail, wave to the cameras and go home," said Schwarz's attorney, Ronald Fischetti.

Fischetti said he would ask U.S. District Judge Reena Raggi to free his client on a $100,000 bond secured with family property — the same bail set before he was imprisoned.

Hynes had originally charged the officers with assault, but he turned over the case to federal authorities believing the officers, if convicted, would face harsher punishment.

The appeals court ruling said there was significant evidence that soon after the state investigation began, the officers "agreed generally to impede investigators by putting forth and corroborating a false version of what occurred."

In another explosive New York City police case, an expert on the use of deadly force who testified on behalf of the four officers who fatally shot unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo in 1999 is being considered to head the police department's training division.

James Fyfe, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said that if he gets the job he will examine the department's training for recruits and officers from top to bottom.

"Because of the events of (Sept. 11), there are new needs that have to be met," Fyfe said.

Fyfe was a witness for the four white police officers who shot Diallo, a black West African immigrant. He was killed when 19 of the 41 bullets the officers fired at him struck him in the vestibule of his Bronx apartment building.

The officers were searching for a rape suspect and wanted to question Diallo. The officers said they fired when they thought Diallo was pulling a gun — it turned out to be a black wallet.

The officers were acquitted of murder in a state trial.

By Tom Hays