Judge denies motion in ex-narc cops' case

A FEDERAL JUDGE yesterday denied a motion to dismiss all charges against one of the six ex-narcotics cops facing a racketeering-conspiracy trial later this month.

U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno wrote in a memorandum that "the evidence does not support Speiser's assertion that the grand jury would not have returned an indictment against him but for testimony."

Speiser's attorney, Michael Diamondstein, in a motion to quash the indictment with respect to his client, had argued that charges should be dismissed against his client because the only alleged victim in the indictment who had named Speiser before the investigating grand jury, Cirigliano, had perjured himself. Diamondstein contended that except for Cirigliano's testimony, Speiser would not have been charged in the indictment.

In recent days, the judge granted federal prosecutors' requests to remove Cirigliano's and two other alleged victims' "episodes" from the indictment. Prosecutors said they learned earlier this month that Cirigliano had made different statements in a civil lawsuit he had filed against Speiser and other cops. They said although he made inconsistent statements before the grand jury, he did not perjure himself.

Besides the episode involving Cirigliano, Speiser was named in two other "episodes" of alleged wrongdoing by the cops against two other alleged victims, whose "episodes" remain in the indictment. Robreno sided with the government in finding that although these other two alleged victims did not name Speiser to the grand jury, Speiser himself placed himself at the scene of one episode because he wrote the police report about the incident, and in the other case, another cop, Thomas Liciardello, had indicated in his police report that Speiser was present.

"Any perjury [Cirigliano] may or may not have committed before the grand jury was immaterial, regardless of the government's knowledge, and Speiser's motion must be denied," Robreno wrote.

Opening statements in the trial against the six ex-cops, accused of conspiring to rob alleged drug dealers, are sched