Re: 9/29/00 - Cop takes 5th before grand jury
Cop takes 5th before grand jury
William Kaempffer, Register Staff September 29, 2000
NEW HAVEN — An apparent target in a probe of alleged police misconduct has refused to answer questions from a grand jury, sources confirmed.
Capt. Brian Sullivan, suspended head of detectives, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when called before Superior Court Judge Carmen Elisa Espinosa, who is sitting as the one-person grand jury.
Sullivan’s attorney Hugh F. Keefe reportedly told the grand jury that his client did nothing wrong and wasn’t answering questions because the grand jury could not ensure the confidentiality of the testimony, sources said.
Grand juries in Connecticut are secretive.
But Keefe has maintained information in the case consistently has been leaked to the media nonetheless.
Contacted Thursday, Keefe said he would not comment on the case.
"I am not about to say what, if anything, transpired before the grand jury in this case," Keefe said. "That should be secret."
He renewed his assault on the top echelon of the police department, maintaining they have leaked information about the case to keep the spotlight from them.
"Whoever is leaking information to the press ought to be prosecuted," he said.
Sullivan and Sgt. Edward Kendall, his former second-in-command in the detective bureau, have emerged as the likely targets of the probe. Both remain on paid administrative leave from the department.
The grand jury is investigating whether members of the detective bureau withheld evidence from North Haven police in a 1996 murder.
Although Espinosa has the ability to expand the investigation to other questions of misconduct, it remained unclear if she had done so.
The judge is holding proceedings behind closed doors in her New Britain courtroom. She has been investigating the allegations since April. She must deliver her decision by mid-October or request a six-month extension.
The controversy has plagued the department since early this year and has turned police officer against police officer.
At issue is a February 1998 witness statement taken by two New Haven detectives at police headquarters. During questioning, the man said he witnessed a murder in 1996 and provided details that matched the North Haven case. He named a possible suspect and picked out his photo.
Detectives Stephen Coppola and Edwin Rodriguez, who worked for Sullivan and Kendall, had the audiotaped statement transcribed and went to their bosses with the information.
But New Haven never informed North Haven detectives of the new lead. The tape was logged into evidence and then disappeared. The transcript languished in Kendall’s drawer until early this year when State’s Attorney Michael Dearington began an investigation of why North Haven was kept in the dark.
Reportedly dissatisfied with New Haven’s response, Dearington requested an investigative grand jury, which is very rare in Connecticut. The state Judicial Department approved the request in April and named Espinosa the grand juror.
Although little information on testimony before the grand juror has come out in the six-month investigation, a picture has emerged of claims and accusations inside police headquarters as a separate internal affairs probe of the issue runs parallel to Espinosa’s.
In a meeting in early 1998, soon after Coppola and Rodriguez took the witness statement, Sullivan told the detectives to end their investigation. Kendall and Sgt. Direk Rodgers, a shift supervisor in the detective bureau, also attended the meeting.
At the time, Sullivan said the order came directly from the chief and Sullivan later told internal affairs investigators that it was Police Chief Melvin H. Wearing who delivered the order.
Wearing denies ever giving that order.
But Sullivan also told internal affairs this May that he told Kendall to forward the evidence to North Haven.
At first, Kendall said he intended to turn the information over but forgot after getting sidetracked on other murder cases and injuring his back.
But later in May, Kendall recanted his statement to internal affairs, saying Sullivan never told him to forward the witness statement.
Kendall, Wearing, Coppola, Rodriguez and Rodgers already have testified before Espinosa.
Meanwhile, the internal affairs unit has drafted affidavits seeking the arrest of Sullivan and Kendall on charges of hindering prosecution, tampering with evidence and making false statements.
The documents were forwarded to the prosecutor’s office unsigned, meaning no warrants will be issued unless the drafts are returned to police and sworn. Even then, both a prosecutor and judge must approve them.
With decisions expected soon from the grand jury, veteran officers say it is unlikely the warrants will be signed.
The North Haven murder remains unsolved. Police believe the victim, Philip S. Cusick, 23, was a passenger in a car when a drug dealer in New Haven fired at him. The driver sped off after the gunfire and later dropped Cusick’s body outside his house in North Haven.
But authorities have never definitively established where the shooting occurred, so North Haven handled the investigation.
©New Haven Register 2000
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