DRUG LORD IN COP KILL EYES SLIDE

Byrne's Pals Outraged

The fight by a drug kingpin - implicated in one of the most notorious
New York cop killings - to seek early release from prison under the
state's newly relaxed Rockefeller drug laws moves a step closer early
next month.

John McCaskell has petitioned a court to get out from behind bars,
sparking a backlash from the Manhattan district attorney's office and
furious police leaders.

A hearing on his case is now scheduled for Nov. 3.

McCaskell is using the easing of the 1970s statute, championed by
then-Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, that imposed long sentences on crooks
caught trafficking. A number of inmates have used the relaxing of the
law to win freedom, and McCaskell, with 13 years behind bars, is
trying to do the same.

Serving a 25-years-to-life sentence for selling cocaine, McCaskell's
name figured prominently in the death of rookie cop Edward Byrne.

The 1988 cold-blooded assassination of 22-year-old Byrne - shot five
times in the head with a .357-magnum while guarding a prosecution
witness in Queens - stunned the city.

The Manhattan DA argues that McCaskell, once a powerful Queens drug
lord, deserves to stay behind bars because of his role in the
disappearance of the weapon used to kill the young officer. When
McCaskell, now 37, was sentenced for his drug crimes in 1992, it was
also alleged that he got rid of the murder weapon.

Prosecutors now say that fresh video evidence from two of the men
convicted in the assassination - Scott Cobb and Todd Scott - backs up
the claim.

According to court papers seen by the Daily News, Cobb has told
police that immediately after the shooting, the triggerman, David
McClary, refused to toss the gun off a bridge.

Three hours later, the hit team met at a diner, where McClary was
sitting with a "right-hand man," a drug dealer known as Born -
McCaskell's nickname.

According to papers filed by Assistant Manhattan District Attorney
Jeanine Laurnay, it was during this meeting that McCaskell was given
the murder weapon to dispose of.

"Only a top member of the group would be trusted with the knowledge
not only of who the homicide participants were, but of where the
murder weapon could be found," she argues.

McCaskell has never been charged in the coverup and was not one of
the gang members involved in the murder.

His lawyers say he's now entitled to a reduced sentence because he
was convicted of a nonviolent crime - first-degree criminal
possession of a controlled substance for possession of 300 vials of
cocaine, enough to produce $11,000 worth of crack.

Margaret Ratner-Kunstler, McCaskell's lawyer, contends there were
five drug dealers nicknamed Born operating in Queens at the time of
the cop's murder. She says that prosecutors had relied on statements
from a police informer to tie her client to the disposal of the
weapon, and that her client was behind bars when the second witness
claims McCaskell admitted in a street conversation to dumping the gun.

She added that it was unfair to keep McCaskell imprisoned based on
uncharged crimes and accusers who are "neither reliable nor accurate."

But Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent
Association, said yesterday that McCaskell should have been charged
as an accomplice in Byrne's killing. "If you speak of killing a
police officer, if you hid the gun, if you helped those who pulled
the trigger, you should be charged with the murder. He should not be
allowed leniency."

A ruling will come after oral arguments before Manhattan Supreme
Court Justice Marcy Kahn on Nov. 3.