PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Six city narcotics officers used gangland tactics to shake down drug dealers, robbing them of large sums of cash and drugs for years, federal authorities charged in an indictment unsealed Wednesday.
The officers once held a suspect over an 18th floor balcony and used a steel bar to beat someone else in the head, authorities said. Another suspect was held captive in a hotel room for several days while he and his family were threatened, they said.
The plan “was to identify suspected drug dealers and use extortionate means or threats to get their money and profits,” U.S. Attorney Zane Memeger said.
The scheme ran from 2006 to 2012, when Officer Jeffrey Walker was arrested. He has since pleaded guilty and cooperated in the two-year probe. Walker and a colleague “stole and distributed a multi-kilo quantity of cocaine, like everyday drug dealers do,” Memeger said.
The officers arrested early Wednesday were Thomas Liciardello, Brian Reynolds, Michael Spicer, Perry Betts, Linwood Norman and John Speiser.