"This Is Training Day Fuckin' For Real"

By George Anastasia
For Bigtrial.net

He said they were all dressed in black and wearing ski masks and his first thought was that it was "the Mafia" coming to rob him.

It turns out, according to a federal indictment, that Michael Cascioli was half right. They were coming to rob him. But it wasn't the Mafia. It was the cops.

Cascioli, once a major marijuana dealer in the Philadelphia area, spent four hours on the witness stand today describing his November 2007 encounter with what prosecutors allege was a rogue and out-of-control group of Philadelphia Police Department narcotics officers.

The soft-spoken 39-year-old was the second key witness to take the stand in the federal racketeering conspiracy trial of six officers accused of stealing more than $500,000 in cash and drugs from dealers they targeted over a four-year period. They used threats and violence to carry out the scheme, according to a 26-count indictment, and then falsified official arrest reports to cover their actions.

The alleged assault on Cascioli, carried out on the night of Nov. 26 and through the early morning hours of Nov. 27, was part of a pattern of corruption outlined in the indictment. His testimony, a description of a night of terror in his 19th floor apartment at the Executive House on City Avenue, fleshed out the details that are at the heart of the case.

At one point, he said, the police threatened to throw him off the apartment balcony, lifting him off his feet as they carried him to the railing while letting  him stare into the dark night and a parking lot 19 floors below.

"We'll just throw you off. Nobody would know," Cascioli said he was told by Thomas Liciardello, who has been described as the leader of the rogue group of cops.

Earlier, when he asked for a lawyer, Cascioli said Liciardello replied, "Fuck you." At another point, as he said police pressured him to tell them where he kept his money and who his suppliers were, he said Liciardelli asked him if he knew the movie Training Day.

Cascioli said he knew the film in which Denzel Washington stars as a violently corrupt cop.

"This is Training Day fuckin' for real," he said Liciardello replied.

The indictment alleges that four of the six officers charged in the case where part of the group that dealt with Cascioli that night. In addition to Liciardello, Perry Betts, Michael Spicer and Linwood Norman were identified as part of the team that conducted the search. The other two defendants in the case, John Speiser and Brian Reynolds, were not named in the Cascioli episode but face other charges.

Cascioli said his confrontation with police began around 7 p.m. after he received a call from Robert Kushner who lived one floor below him. Kushner wanted to buy some drugs. (Kushner, the first witness called in the trial, testified yesterday that Liciardelli and two other officers pressured and threatened him, forcing him to give up his drug sources.)

Carrying a black bag in which he had put two pounds of marijuana and one pound of hallucinogenic mushrooms, Cascioli said he left his apartment and began to walk toward a stairwell that would take him to the 18th floor when he spotted several men dressed in black coming toward him. He said he tried to run, but was tackled in the hallway and forced back into his apartment.

He said the men identified themselves as police, but never showed him a search warrant and never read him his rights. When he asked for a lawyer, Liciardello dismissed the request with an expletive.

Beatings, threats and several trips to the balcony followed over the next four or five hours, he said. All of it was designed to get him to give up information about his suppliers and to tell where he had his money.

He said he eventually did both.

Cascioli said he was earning between $30,000 and $50,000-a-month at the time and had stashed $424,000 at different locations. None of that money, however, was in the apartment. But he did have 15 pounds of marijuana and eight pounds of mushrooms along with about $900 in cash.

He said police swarmed through his apartment searching for more drugs and money and continually threatening him. He said he was punched, choked and thrown into a wall. He said he was also left on the balcony, dressed in shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops, for about a half hour during the cold night.

Different members of the police department came and went, he said, including a Chief Inspector who showed up and stayed for about 10 minute. Cascioli said the inspector appeared "tipsy" and left shortly after arriving.

At one point during the night, he said, police called a pizzeria and had several pies delivered, using some of his cash to pay the bill. But that, he later admitted under cross-examination, was the only money taken from him illegally.

He said his apartment was ransacked and that he later determined that several valuables were stolen, including two Movado watches, sun glasses and a Versace sweat suit.

Under cross-examination, Cascioli was less forthcoming, at first refusing to identified his major customers whom he said were "lawyers, doctors and moms."

"I'd prefer not to give names," he said in response to a question from Jack McMahon, one of the defense attorneys. 

"And I'd prefer to be in the Caribbean right now, but I'm not," McMahon shot back.

Judge Eduardo Robreno ruled that Cascioli should be required to identified his customers. With that the witness named one of a half dozen customers, but said he couldn't remember or didn't know the names of the others. One, he said, was a lawyer whom he nicknamed "The Jew." Another was an executive at a marketing firm. A third was someone named Mike.

 Cascioli said he was forced to set up his main supplier, a Bronx-based drug dealer whom he called that night and who was arrested when he showed up early the next morning at the Executive House. He also admitted under cross-examination that he lied to FBI agents who questioned him after his arrest about where he kept his money.

Authorities eventually seized over $400,000. About $324,000 was at the home of Cascioli's brother in Maryland. Another $80,000 was in a safe he had placed in the home of a friend in Bryn Mawr.

Cascioli said a year after the raid he pleaded guilty to drug charges and was sentenced to 13 months in state prison. He said he never filed a complaint about his treatment while his case was being adjudicated and said he never returned to his apartment after that night.

"I wanted to get as far away as possible," he said, adding that he now lives in another state.

He said he was contacted by the FBI in October 2013 about the current case and agreed to tell them what had happened to him and testify against the officers.

This led to a question from Jeffrey Miller, the lawyer for Liciardello, that underscored what are emerging as the key issues in the trial -- the crediliby, honesty and motivation of the drug dealer witnesses. 

Miller returned to Cascioli's refusal to identify the customers to whom he sold bulk quantities of marijuana and mushrooms.

"So you're will to name police officers," Miller said, pointing to the table where the six defendants sat, "but you're not willing to name drug dealers?'

Cascioli said he didn't want to identify those he sold to, but insisted he couldn't remember or didn't know their names.

He also acknowledged that he is considering a civil suit. But said if he does bring a civil action, it won't be for money.

"I don't want money," he said. "My rights were violated...I want to win."

George Anastasia can be contacted at George@bigtrial.net.