Leniency Request Is Denied for NYPD Officer in Louima Case - Black Man Beaten & Sodomized with Broom Stick in Precinct Bathroom

Nearly a decade after the station house attack on Abner Louima, an act of police brutality that had epic consequences for the city and its police force, a federal judge told a former police officer yesterday that his perjury had prevented a full accounting of the crime. The judge, Reena Raggi, who handled parts of the case in Federal District Court in Brooklyn before her appointment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, rejected a request for leniency and reinstated a five-year prison sentence for the former officer, Charles Schwarz. "This is, and was, a very, very serious crime, the first link in a chain that caused tremendous, tremendous problems for this city," Judge Raggi said. Mr. Louima was sodomized with a broomstick in a bathroom of the 70th Precinct station house in Brooklyn in August 1997. Judge Raggi said that Mr. Schwarz had failed to accept responsibility for lying to protect other officers, including Justin A. Volpe, who attacked Mr. Louima. She said there was another officer in the bathoom, and that "it was either you, which I think is highly probable — in fact I think it's more than highly probable — or it was someone else."  Four days after the attack, Mr. Schwarz and Mr. Volpe were charged with assault and sexual abuse. Mr. Volpe, who has told federal officials that Mr. Schwarz was not in the bathroom, was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Prosecutions of other officers have ended in acquittals and overturned verdicts. Convicted of perjury for testifying that he did not lead Mr. Louima to the bathroom, Mr. Schwarz agreed, before Judge Raggi in 2002, to a five-year prison term.  [more]

• Legal Documents: Abner Louima Case Indictment [more]and[more]
• Pictured: (above) Demonstrators rally at City Hall after marching over the Brooklyn Bridge to protest the alleged police torture of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima, Aug. 29, 1997, in New York. The march was dubbed "Day of Outrage Against Police Brutality and Harassment." [more] and (top) Abner Louima with his attorney Johnny Cochran.