- Originally published in the NY Times on
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."
A lawyer for Mr. Schwarz, Ronald P. Fischetti, disputed that assertion in an interview, saying, "Chuck Schwarz was never in the bathroom, never knew what was going on in the bathroom."
The hearing, convened to address an unforeseen sentencing technicality, ostensibly concerned matters agreeable to prosecutors and defense lawyers alike. But even without Mr. Louima in attendance, the proceedings quickly became a forum on truth and reconciliation as Judge Raggi sketched the broad shadow cast by a narrow lie.
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. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to drop charges that he had violated Mr. Louima's civil rights. Both sides entered the agreement under the mistaken belief that Mr. Schwarz would most likely be eligible for a sentence reduction, lawyers said yesterday.
Before dozens of supporters of Mr. Schwarz, including his wife and a priest, Judge Raggi said she would consider a motion to vacate the sentence and accept an agreement for a new sentence of between 47 and 60 months. The low end of that scale would qualify him for immediate release.
But before vacating the sentence, Judge Raggi told Mr. Schwarz to expect the worst and offered him time to confer with his lawyers.
Mr. Schwarz, who according to his lawyer had come to court by bus from a prison in Minnesota, told the judge he was ready to proceed.
Mr. Fischetti asked Judge Raggi to consider the circumstances of Mr. Schwarz's imprisonment, including months of solitary confinement in a 7-foot-by-9-foot cell. He recited his history as an altar boy, Boy Scout, high school football captain and marine. He spoke of the Schwarz family's financial and medical troubles, how hard it was for them to visit an out-of-state prison, and the harassment they face.
"He's known as the Louima cop," Mr. Fischetti said.
The judge invited Mr. Schwarz to speak, strongly hinting that acceptance of responsibility was lacking from the documents filed to support a reduced sentence.
Mr. Schwarz repeated his lawyer's plea for leniency, speaking of family obligations and a 2-year-old son he had seen only four times.
"It's going to be difficult to put my life together," he said, concluding, "With regards to the perjury, I accept responsibility for it, your honor."
Judge Raggi said: "Implicit in that is that you know more about the events that occurred on that date than you have ever told anyone."
She asked if he wanted to say anything else, and Mr. Schwarz mumbled inaudibly. Then she rejected his lawyer's arguments and dismissed his "very belated and halting acceptance of responsibility."
"Mr. Schwarz," Judge Raggi said, "I think you know where this is going."
He will be eligible for release next year.