EX-COP A DRUG DEALER, JURY TOLD

Defense Counters - He Lived His Job In Anti-Gang Unit

A federal prosecutor told a jury Tuesday that former Chicago policeman
Joseph Miedzianowski was "nothing but a drug dealer" and promised to guide
jurors into a world in which the ex-cop's close friends were gang members
with names like the Ghost and Baby Face Nelson.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Brian Netols laid a broad framework in which he said
the government's evidence would prove that Miedzianowski used his police
powers to protect his drug ring, not just from rival drug dealers, but also
from legitimate law enforcement.

"You are about to enter the world of Joseph Miedzianowski, where everything
is upside down, where right is wrong and wrong is right and police protect
the bad guys," Netols told the jurors,

But one of Miedzianowski's lawyers, Randy Rueckert, told the panel that
Miedzianowski's world was nothing like that.

"Let's talk about Joe's world," Rueckert said. "Joe is married with two
children. He was a Chicago police officer for 22 years. . . . Joe was a cop
24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year."

Rueckert said Miedzianowski was so good at his job that he developed an
enviable array of gang informants whom others in the Chicago Police
Department relied upon to help solve gang-related crimes.

Now, Rueckert said, some of those same informants, finding themselves in
trouble with the law, have agreed to testify against Miedzianowski in
exchange for lighter prison sentences.

"They are all drug dealers. They are all gangsters," Rueckert said. "They
all cut a deal."

These clashing views will play out during the former gang crimes officer's
trial, which could last two months, in U.S. District Judge Blanche
Manning's courtroom.

Miedzianowski, 47, faces charges that he hid a wanted killer from police,
shook down drug dealers for cash and narcotics, provided warring gangs with
semi-automatic handguns, misused confidential informants, fixed state drug
cases, and may have placed undercover officers' lives in jeopardy by
revealing their identities.

In addition to Miedzianowski, four other alleged members of his
Miami-to-Chicago drug conduit are on trial: Mohammed S. Omar Jr., 31; Omar
Feliciano, 27; Lissett Rivera, 30; and Miedzianowski's former girlfriend,
Alina Lis, 37.

Lis' lawyer, Melvin Weisberg, told the jury that Lis was not a drug
courier, as the government alleged, but became entangled in the case merely
because of her love for Miedzianowski, whom she believed was separated from
his wife and would marry her.

"For Alina Lis, this was not about drugs and drug distribution, but a love
story," Weisberg said.

Other defense lawyers also attacked the government's potential witnesses
and pointed out to jurors that they would not see physical evidence such as
mounds of cash from drug deals or piles of cocaine because there was none.

The government's two-year investigation also led to the arrests of 18
others, including Miedzianowski's police partner,John Galligan.

Galligan is to be tried separately, but his name surfaced in court Tuesday
when the government called its first witness, Juan Martir, a convicted drug
dealer known on the streets as Casper the Ghost because of his large, round
and balding head. Another witness prosecutors plan to call is convicted
murderer Nelson Padilla, known as Baby Face Nelson.

Martir testified that Miedzianowski and Galligan arranged for him to have
sex in the federal building while he was a prisoner in 1991.

At the time, Martir was an informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms, and Miedzianowski was temporarily assigned to the bureau along
with other city cops.

Martir testified that he was brought from the Metropolitan Correctional
Center to the federal courthouse to be interviewed by Miedzianowski. He
said Miedzianowski at one point asked whether he wanted a woman.

Martir said yes, and Galligan later brought a woman to the courthouse,
leaving Martir alone with her in a conference room, Martir testified.

"Did you have sex?" Netols asked.

"Yes," Martir replied.

Martir also testified that Miedzianowski protected the drug ring, supplied
him with a gun, assisted in ripping off drug dealers and brokered cocaine
deals.

Martir, who once was a high-ranking member in the Imperial Gangsters, is to
return to the witness stand Wednesday.

In his opening statement earlier Tuesday, Rueckert cautioned the jury about
the "Juan Martir Show," saying Martir was a career criminal offender facing
the prospect of life in prison and had decided to testify against
Miedzianowski.

"This isn't the first time Juan Martir was arrested in a major case and
sought to get himself out of a jam by beefing on someone else," Rueckert
suggested to the jury.

But Netols said the evidence would show that Miedzianowski was an integral
part of the drug ring, which in a three-year period spent $33,000 on
airline tickets to smuggle drugs and money between Chicago and Miami.

Netols said the government's evidence would include hundreds of hours of
secretly recorded conversations.

"The most important evidence you are going to hear are the actual
statements of Joseph Miedzianowski," Netols said.