It Was the Largest Dismissal in One Day in City History. A Philadelphia judge on Friday reversed 158 narcotics convictions tainted by allegations of police corruption - the largest such dismissal in one day in city history. The rulings by Common Pleas Court President Judge Sheila Woods-Skipper were the latest fallout from the federal prosecution of seven police narcotics officers. The officers - Thomas Liciardello, Brian Reynolds, Michael Spicer, Perry Betts, Linwood Norman, and John Speiser - were acquitted of all charges at a federal trial in May. [continues 501 words]
Two years ago, a veteran police narcotics officer was labeled a liar by a Philadelphia judge who tossed evidence seized from an alleged drug dealer, destroying the prosecution's case. The Philadelphia Police Department has removed Christopher Hulmes from street duty pending the outcome of an Internal Affairs investigation; the city has paid $150,000 to settle a civil-rights lawsuit against him, and another is pending in federal court. But Hulmes told another Philadelphia judge on Tuesday that he was telling the truth about the June 14 arrest of alleged Kensington drug buyer Richard Hill. [continues 483 words]
The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office dismissed yesterday more than a dozen drug and gun charges against a Kensington man, in what is believed to be the first case dropped because of the ongoing investigation of narcotics officer Jeffrey Cujdik. Common Pleas Court Judge Jack A. Snite Jr. approved the dismissal of charges against [name redated], 35, but allowed the prosecutor to refile if the probe's outcome makes that possible. The [name redated] case was hitting the deadline by which it had to be tried. Scores more cases resulting from the work of the veteran narcotics officer could soon be in the same place. [continues 531 words]
Two proponents of legalizing marijuana were convicted yesterday of misdemeanor counts of possession of marijuana during three protests at Independence National Historical Park after a federal judge rejected their claim that smoking was constitutionally protected because they are Rastafarians. Edward Forchion, 40, a perennial political candidate from Browns Mills in Burlington County who goes by the name "NJ Weedman," and Patrick L. Duff, 27, of Philadelphia, were convicted for their actions during demonstrations near the Liberty Bell on Dec. 20, March 20 and April 17. [continues 68 words]
They are among 32 charged with participating in a $10 million ring. The area was targeted by Operation Sunrise 3 years ago. Three years ago, federal and city authorities descended on the 3000 block of North Lawrence Street in one of the first Operation Sunrise raids to eradicate drug dealing in Fairhill. Yesterday, they returned to the neighborhood with a federal indictment charging 32 people in a $10 million round-the-clock drug market that authorities said threatened to erase their gains over drug dealers. [continues 636 words]
Prosecutors could not prove that the man, who is living in Bucks County, knew he was dealing with drug traffickers. A federal judge yesterday refused to return a Colombian lawyer to his homeland to face drug-related charges, saying prosecutors lacked proof the lawyer knew he was dealing with narcotics traffickers when he used a Colombian businessman to help transfer money to his mother in Bucks County. "If we're going to do a certificate of extraditability for him, then we might as well do one for the mother," U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles B. Smith told federal prosecutors. "It was her money that was being used." [continues 396 words]
In A Class-Action Suit, 160 Plaintiffs Challenged A Government Ban On Medical Use Of The Drug. Calling for a scientific determination of marijuana's value as a medicine, a federal judge yesterday dismissed an unusual class-action lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the government ban on medical use of the drug. U.S. District Judge Marvin Katz said that although a handful of people had been given the drug under a federal "compassionate-use program" since the 1970s, the government is not legally obligated to extend that program to all citizens. [continues 374 words]
As the head of Philadelphia's division of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration office sees it, the region has little to fear from the epidemic of ephedrine-based methamphetamine that has plagued the Midwest for several years. That's the good news. The bad news, said the DEA's Lawrence P. McElynn, is the reason: Philadelphia is in no danger of losing its 25-year crown as the East Coast's leading producer of the more traditional form of methamphetamine created from the solvent P2P, or phenyl-2-propanone. [continues 339 words]
Plaintiffs Seeking To Legalize The Drug For Medical Use Will Get Their Day In Court A federal judge yesterday refused to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to legalize the medical use of marijuana, ruling that the plaintiffs deserved the chance to prove the government had no reason to deny the drug to seriously ill people. "The answer must come from facts, not the abstractions and dogma presently in the record," wrote U.S. District Judge Marvin Katz in a 25-page opinion and order. [continues 325 words]
Plaintiffs seeking to legalize the drug for medicinal use will get their day in federal court. A federal judge yesterday refused to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to legalize the medical use of marijuana, ruling that the plaintiffs deserved the chance to prove the government had no reason to deny the drug to seriously ill people. "The answer must come from facts, not the abstractions and dogma presently in the record," wrote U.S. District Judge Marvin Katz in a 25-page opinion and order. [continues 381 words]
A judge ruled that he did not necessarily know that crates he helped move contained pot. A federal judge yesterday dismissed drug-conspiracy charges against the grandson and namesake of convicted mobster-drug dealer Raymond "Long John" Martorano, ruling that prosecutors failed to prove the younger Martorano knew that hundreds of pounds of packages he helped move contained marijuana. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Anita B. Brody came after a nonjury trial last week in which prosecutors alleged that Raymond Martorano, 23, of Cherry Hill, had conspired with restaurateur John Gaeta, 36, of South Philadelphia, to import more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana from Houston to Philadelphia and Newark, N.J., using a commercial shipping company. Federal agents watched the two men April 29 as they picked up two large crates from Philadelphia International Airport and drove them to a garage in the 700 block of Perth Street in South Philadelphia. Both men were arrested before they unloaded or opened the crates, and Martorano immediately maintained his innocence, saying he did not know what was inside. [continues 214 words]
The man federal prosecutors say runs a drug ring from which agents last week seized 1,600 pounds of marijuana and $1 million in cash was arrested Tuesday night at Amtrak's 30th Street Station after seven days as a fugitive. Alexander Kopeykin, 34, was arrested by agents from the FBI and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration about 8:45 p.m. as he stepped off a train that had arrived from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Kopeykin, a Center City jewelry and electronics retailer who was preparing to launch a riverfront restaurant in Torresdale, had a brief court appearance yesterday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles B. Smith. Smith ordered him held pending a bail hearing Tuesday. [continues 380 words]
Nine Philadelphia men were ac cused by a federal grand jury yesterday of operating drug labs in Kensington and Port Richmond that shipped more than 250 pounds of methamphetamine to traffickers across the East Coast since 1993. U.S. Attorney Michael R. Stiles said that, in arresting eight of the nine suspects yesterday, agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Admin istration seized about $400,000 in cash and 4.2 pounds of the illegal stimulant from houses in lower Northeast neighborhoods. [continues 382 words]
This summer, Alexander Kopeykin was the classic American success story: a Ukrainian immigrant turned Center City jewelry retailer who, at age 34, was publicly announcing his dream of turning a closed Delaware riverfront restaurant into a glitzy eatery called Millennium. Yesterday, however, Kopeykin was a fugitive from the FBI, on the lam after a purported associate and two Arizona men were arrested Wednesday with a truckload of high-quality Mexican marijuana and $1 million in cash. "Now we know where he got the money," speculated Lawrence P. McElynn, the head of the Philadelphia office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, as he looked at loaves of pressed marijuana loaded on the tailgate of a rental truck parked outside the federal building in Center City. Down the street was Kopeykin's store, East Coast Jewelry & Sound, at 722-24 Market St. [continues 538 words]
He Suggested Settling A Suit Over A Program By Expanding It. Officials Are Reviewing The Idea. In a move that surprised both sides, a judge has asked government lawyers to consider settling a class-action lawsuit by implementing a federal program supplying marijuana to anyone "whose medical conditions could be improved by it." The suggestion by U.S. District Judge Marvin Katz was made last week in a conference with Justice Department lawyers and Lawrence Elliott Hirsch, a Center City attorney who in July filed the lawsuit on behalf of 165 individuals who the suit says would benefit medically from smoking marijuana. [continues 520 words]
Peter Henry had a lucrative second job laundering money for a drug ring, according to a grand jury. Officer Peter W. Henry is accused of aiding a marijuana ring. Though he had worked only as a city police officer, Peter Henry drove a Mercedes-Benz and deposited large sums of cash -- once as much as $16,000 - -- in his personal account at the Philadelphia Police and Fire Federal Credit Union. Thriftiness, federal prosecutors say, had nothing to do with it. [continues 657 words]
Cited in the suit, which seeks to allow medicinal use, are personal stories like the one of a Philadelphia AIDS patient and activist. It's been said that nothing is so powerful as an idea whose time has come, and lawyer Lawrence Elliott Hirsch may be right: That now is the hour to sue to legalize the medical use of marijuana. After all, it's been two years since Californians approved a ballot question legalizing the medical use of marijuana to help patients suffering from such illnesses as cancer, AIDS and glaucoma. [continues 1112 words]
PHILADELPHIA - A federal grand jury yesterday accused several reputed leaders of the Pagans motorcycle club of operating a drug ring that recruited two young Amish men and a juvenile to provide cocaine to Amish youth in Pennsylvania. The indictment describing the odd alliance of outlaw motorcyclists and sons of Pennsylvania's horse-and-buggy Amish was made public by U.S. Attorney Michael Stiles and officials of the FBI and Pennsylvania state police. The three-count indictment - believed to be the first federal drug case involving the Old Order Amish - charges 10 people with trafficking in large quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine. [continues 277 words]
