Policewoman Faces 10 Years Because Dog Bites Suspect
Brooklyn Officer Faces 15 Years —
For a Crime He Didn’t Commit
Officer Chuck Schwarz with his wife, Andra, on the day he graduated from the Police Academy. The young couple hoped to have a family, but Chuck faces 13 more years in jail.
In 1997, New York City Police Officer Charles Schwarz, a former Marine and member of the National Guard, was radioed at 4 a.m. in his police cruiser that there was a riot at a Harlem night club. Going to the scenc, he and two other officers, Thomas Wiese, and Justin Volpe, arrested a Haitian immigrant, Abner Louima, and took him back to the 70th Precinct. While Officer Schwarz was at the front desk filling out the paperwork to book him for disorderly conduct, a deplorable event occurred. One of the arresting officers, Justin Volpe, took the suspect into the rest room and cruelly sodomized him with a broomstick handle.
Within a few days, Officer Justin Volpe was arrested and subsequently convicted for this crime. However, the front page story caused much criticism of the NYPD. Black leaders, including Al Sharpton and the NAACP, clamored for more arrests. As a result, Officer Schwarz, who had nothing to do with the crime, was indicted and arrested.
Even the victim-suspect, Abner Louima, said he wasn’t sure who was there other than Officer Volpe. However Officer Eric Turetsky, a front desk officer, testified that Officer Schwarz led Louima to the men’s room, even though he had told three other policemen that he wasn’t sure which officer took Louima to the rest room. However these three officers never testified as their identities were hidden from the defense. Since no one countered Officer Turetsky’s testimony, Officer Schwarz was convicted in 1998 of depriving Abner Louima of his civil rights and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Charles Schwarz has already spent more than two years behind bars because he happened to be working on the night that this crime occurred. The LELDF believes that he was unfairly charged. Apparently, the prosecutors knew that Schwarz was "The Wrong Man," but worried about having a Rodney King-type riot in New York, so they succumbed to political pressure and convicted an innocent man.
The LELDF has made this case a top priority and is assisting in funds, legal costs and other details involved in setting up an appeal. We helped with the remand hearing scheduled in September before Judge Nickerson, but he refused to schedule a new trial. However it looks as if the Second Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the case over the next few months. All of this has been made possible with the generous contributions of LELDF supporters. We will let you know the results of the appeal in the next newsletter, or check our website, www.leldf.org, for updates on the case.
