Widespread Abuse by N.Y. Cops Denied

NEW YORK —  Defense lawyers for officers accused in the beating of a Haitian immigrant accused prosecutors Thursday of using the improper actions of one cop to paint a portrait of widespread police abuse that does not exist.

The case “was not about a culture of police brutality. . . . It was about one sick, depraved individual and the acts he committed,” said lawyer Stephen Worth in his closing argument.

Worth’s client, Officer Charles Schwarz, is charged with holding down Abner Louima while an enraged Officer Justin Volpe sodomized the handcuffed prisoner with a broken broom handle.

Three other officers face lesser civil rights charges. The jury was to begin deliberations today.

Last week, in a mid-trial guilty plea, Volpe confessed that he attacked Louima because he thought, mistakenly, that Louima had punched him in a melee outside a Brooklyn nightclub. Volpe said another officer he didn’t identify was in the bathroom; Schwarz claims he wasn’t there.

“Abner Louima’s been vindicated by Justin Volpe’s guilty plea,” Worth said. “Now it’s time to vindicate Charles Schwarz and stop this scurrilous accusation of him as a sex torturer.”

Schwarz, 33, along with Thomas Wiese, 35, and Thomas Bruder, 33, also is charged in federal court with joining Volpe in beating Louima in a patrol car on Aug. 9, 1997. A fourth defendant, Sgt. Michael Bellomo, 37, allegedly made false reports to cover up the assault on Louima and another Haitian man, Patrick Antoine.

If convicted, Bellomo, Wiese and Bruder could be sentenced to 10 years in prison. Schwarz faces a a maximum of life without parole.