The NYPD Tapes: A Shocking Story of Cops, Cover-ups, and Courage (18 page)

“What’s interesting about this, when they first took his shield and gun, there was a day I couldn’t reach him, and I got concerned, and I called everyone on the planet, and I couldn’t get one goddamn person to go over and check on him,” Larry said. “But now he walks out at two, and now you’re going to have a NYPD alert for the whole city for one 34-year-old patrolman that I’m telling you right now is fine?”

“I wish I could be with you on this,” Lauterborn said. “Have him come out of his apartment and talk to the lieutenant.”

“Ok, captain.” The conversation ended, and Larry called Adrian. That conversation is not available, but they evidently decided that Adrian shouldn’t open the door or talk to Broschart.

Rewind to earlier in the afternoon and Adrian’s state of mind when he arrived home. Schoolcraft called Internal Affairs.

“It’s October 31, 3:38 p.m. I just left work. I didn’t feel safe. Something weird’s going on. I’m calling IAB,” Schoolcraft said into his tape recorder.

He was initially given the run-around, transferred three times, left on hold for five minutes, and cut off once. He finally was connected to an Officer Jean, an investigator in IAB.

“Something happened today where I feel in danger,” Schoolcraft told her. “I made a report to IAB. There’s obviously a leak somewhere. These aren’t officers. These are lieutenants, captains, and a deputy inspector that I made a criminal complaint against.”

Jean asked him to describe what happened.

“Today at 0805, Lieutenant Caughey, the Integrity Control Officer, asked to scratch my activity log,” Schoolcraft told her. “He took it to his office and held on to it about three hours. I have already made a criminal complaint against Lieutenant Caughey and Sergeant Weiss regarding breaking into offices and taking stuff out of personnel folders. When I was looking through it, I didn’t realize how much incriminating stuff which I had been observing and noting in my activity log that they now know. And I have reported not just the downgrading of reports, but flat out throwing them in the trash. I always thought they would know, but today they definitely know, and Lieutenant Caughey was acting very spooky.”

“You’re a little young on the job to be going through all this,” Jean said.

“One of the 124 room civilians, PAA Boston, she calls me,” he replied. “She says, ‘What’s going on? Why is Caughey acting so funny? He’s looking at you.’ I didn’t even notice. After she said that, I started paying attention, and he was. He was pacing with his shirt, his gun. When I got my memo book back, I started to get real worried. ‘Cause what are they afraid of? I definitely didn’t feel safe. I felt menaced. Even the civilian noticed. He then called in Sergeant Huffman. When she came out, her attitude changed. I have
documented in my memo book statements she’s made regarding not taking 61s for robberies.”

“Where are you?”

“At home. At 1415 I went sick. They tried to tell me I couldn’t go home sick. I did not feel safe going home at the normal time. I did not feel safe. I don’t know why they were behaving that way.”

Schoolcraft then described how Sergeant Scott of IAB may have blown his confidentiality by leaving messages for Adrian at the station house.

“Three weeks ago, I got the first call from Sergeant Scott. He was calling for me at the desk telling them he’s Sergeant Scott from IAB looking for Officer Schoolcraft. They were leaving me messages from him.”

In the end, all Jean did was give him a log number of 09–55058.

“That’s it?”

“This is your log number, and I’ll make a notation, and the investigative unit will investigate.”

“He was calling me at work. He was intentionally leaving his name at work, IAB calling Schoolcraft.”

“If I have anymore questions, I’ll give you a call, OK?”

Despite the disappointing end to the conversation, this exchange established a record of the reason for his departure. The whole incident of him leaving the precinct 45 minutes early, even if he was in the wrong, should have been a minor thing, handled with a reprimand, but instead it becomes a firestorm, no less perhaps because of the appearance of high-ranking chief Michael Marino in the story.

CHAPTER 9

HALLOWEEN NIGHT

L
ate in the afternoon of October 31, 2009, as he later told investigators, Deputy Chief Michael Marino was conducting his usual rounds, when he arrived at the 81st Precinct. Walking through the parking lot, he encountered Captain Lauterborn, who was on his way to Schoolcraft’s apartment.

In 2003, Marino had been Schoolcraft’s very first precinct commander, though the two men never interacted. Six years later, he had risen to the number two man in the whole Brooklyn North command, overseeing ten precincts and thousands of police officers. He was considered something of a star in the constellation of NYPD chiefs. He was a symbol of a commander whose career had flourished under CompStat. Some cops called him “Elephant Balls,” and Greg Donaldson of
New York
magazine dubbed him “Captain Midnight” in a 2001 profile.

Donaldson wrote about witnessing as Marino chased down and tackled a shooter who was armed with a machine pistol and “striding into street brawls like a samurai.” He portrayed him as a man who took to lifting weights to be able to take down suspects, and as a workaholic, obsessed with bringing down crime numbers. “I’d commit unnatural acts for three weeks of five,” Marino said, meaning five fewer crimes than the same time last year. Marino also once decked a guy who bad-mouthed the NYPD, Donaldson wrote.

Michael Anthony Marino, born and raised in Brooklyn, graduated in 1973 from Midwood High School. He was raised by a single mother in the Flatbush area. Donaldson wrote that he could read on a college level by seventh grade. He spent half a semester at NYU as a premed student, but he dropped out because he was “repulsed by his well-heeled classmates,” Donaldson wrote.

His personnel records show that instead of continuing with college, he worked construction, at McDonald’s, and as a shipping clerk. After two years hanging telephone lines for TelSpan, he joined the NYPD in November 1979 and was sent to the 28th Precinct in Harlem, where he earned a reputation both for using too much force and for remarkable courage.

In 1983, he and another officer dashed into a burning apartment building at 140 West 111th Street and rescued a seven-month-old girl and a four-year-old boy. His effort earned him a nice letter from Congressman Charles Rangel, and a Harlem resident named Ms. Bullock wrote, “I cried with joy,” he said. “They are brave, courageous. they deserve promotion and more pay. God bless them and their family.” By then, a
Daily News
article noted, he already had 14 commendations for bravery.

In 1991, a tourist named Casey Rucker wrote the commander of the 10th Precinct to thank then Lieutenant Marino for capturing three men in the midst of breaking into his car. “Thanks to his service beyond the call of duty, I was able to get my car and belongings back completely intact,” Rucker wrote.

He was promoted to sergeant in 1984 and saw his salary bulge to a whopping $35,876. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1991, captain in 1997, deputy inspector in 2000, inspector in 2001, and deputy chief in 2004. Earlier in his career, he occasionally worked side jobs in security and at a limousine company.

His work evaluations were consistently top-rate throughout his career. A 1984 evaluation read, “This officer is aggressive and highly motivated.” In a 1996 evaluation when he was a lieutenant, his captain marked his work as well above standard and wrote, “His career potential is unlimited.” “He is as good as they get,” wrote another boss.

A sense of Marino’s command style was provided in Donaldson’s profile. The profile began with Marino, then the commander of Brooklyn’s 77th
Precinct, upbraiding a young officer for his lack of activity. “You’re not doing your job,” he said.

“Marino is not a delicate man,” Donaldson continued. “He tells the bald truth to five-star chiefs and community activists alike, exhorts the cops under his command like a football coach and rides the streets to make arrests personally.”

Donaldson continued the anecdote, writing that when Marino accused him of being off post, the officer refused to discuss it. “You’re talking to your commanding officer,” Marino replied. “I have the power to take days.”

“I thought we could talk about this man to man,” the cop said.

“If this was man to man, you’d be on your ass right now,” Marino replied.

A 2002 evaluation noted that he “constantly seeks to ‘do more with less,’ ” a convenient reference to one of Mayor Bloomberg pet phrases. “Mike Marino is one of the finest commanders in the city,” wrote Assistant Chief Joseph Cuneen.

By the time he arrives at the 81st Precinct that October day, his personnel file was thick with laudatory letters from various politicians, including Congressman Ed Towns and New York State Assembly member Clarence Norman, as well as residents and organizations. On a commendation letter dated November 13, 2000, the Chief of Department Joe Esposito scrawled, “Keep up the good work Mike!!” His file also included a thank-you from the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. A letter from Francis X. McArdle, the influential leader of the General Contractors Association. A missive from the owner of a gun shop in Manhattan thanking him for catching a burglar.

After receiving a letter thanking him for listening and treating his constituents like people, Marino replied, “We go to great lengths to stress upon our officers the importance of treating people as we wish to be treated ourselves.”

Despite his high evaluations, it took Marino an unusually long time to get a precinct command because of his reputation as being too rough. According to Donaldson, he was even told he would never get a command. But he had a rabbi in Louis Anemone, then chief of department and CompStat inquisitioner, who finally convinced then Commissioner Howard Safir to
promote him, Donaldson wrote. Ray Kelly clearly liked Marino because, as Donaldson wrote, he promoted him twice.

In a 2005 deposition he gave in a lawsuit, Marino was asked two questions that offer some insight to his thinking about his job:

“Was there ever a time you spoke to an individual officer about the number of arrests he was making?” a lawyer asked him.

“Too many,” Marino replied.

“What is CompStat?”

“The CompStat system holds commanding officers accountable for the proper operation of their commands,” Marino replied.

Marino had fired his weapon in the line of duty three times—an unusually high number for a police officer, and a signal of his aggressive ways. In all three incidents, he was found to be within NYPD guidelines.

At the same time, he had been the target of 28 different misconduct allegations in his career, according to an Internal Affairs report, including nine incidents of what NYPD Internal Affairs broadly categorized as “corruption.”

In 1982, he was accused of threatening to plant cocaine on a suspect and assaulting him. That was unsubstantiated. In 1989, he was charged but found not guilty of punching a suspect and pushing him into a wall. In 1991, he was charged with punching a suspect in the face but again was found not guilty.

In 1996, the estranged wife of another officer accused Marino and other officers in the 73rd Precinct of robbing drug dealers. That allegation was ruled unsubstantiated. In 2004, he was twice accused of taking property from a crime scene. Both cases were unproven.

In all but two of the allegations, IAB concluded they were either unfounded, unproven, or found to be untrue.

In 2008, Marino received what’s known as a letter of instruction in his personnel file from Chief Campisi of Internal Affairs for taking nearly five hours to notify IAB about the death of a suspect in the 84th Precinct on September 1, 2007.

The only allegation that really stuck was that Marino, a bodybuilder, had been a regular steroid user. In 2007, he was accused of using illegal
steroids purchased from a Bay Ridge pharmacy that had become a hub for the illicit selling of the drugs. A number of other police officers were caught up in the scandal. Internal Affairs investigated for more than a year and had substantiated the charge in January 2009. He admitted only to the use of human growth hormone for a medical condition. He was found guilty under department rules in 2010 of using steroids, but not of patronizing the pharmacy, and would initially reject a deal that would have cost him 30 vacation days and a year of probation.

And yet he was still regarded well enough by Commissioner Kelly that the steroid charge did not cost him his career. Brooklyn prosecutors considered, but eventually did not pursue, criminal charges against any of the officers caught up in the scandal, mainly because they would also have had to charge the many civilians who were buying steroids from the pharmacy.

Instead, Kelly gave Marino a second chance. The commissioner transferred Marino to a Staten Island command. After leaving a final decision unmade for nearly two years, in February 2011, he finally placed Marino on what was called “dismissal probation.” If the chief kept out of trouble for a year, he would not get fired. He also would have to forfeit 30 vacation days. Other cops laughed at the penalty. It was a slap on the wrist, and a soft slap at that, for conduct that probably would have resulted in a criminal case if Marino had been a civilian.

In 2009, though, that weak penalty was still to come. There in the parking lot with Captain Lauterborn, Marino was still the second most powerful commander in Brooklyn North, and he wanted information about Schoolcraft. Lauterborn briefed him. Marino later told investigators that he shared the captain’s concern, and told him to inform both the operations desk and emergency services, the unit that does hard entries into dwellings. Marino was immediately concerned that Schoolcraft might kill himself and wondered whether an “all-out response” was necessary.

By Lauterborn’s account, he told Marino he did not think Schoolcraft was suicidal. He would deal with it himself.

But Marino overruled Lauterborn and decided to also go to the apartment. According to current and retired police, it was unprecedented for
a chief to go to the house of a police officer who had simply left work early.