2 COPS PARTNERS IN CRIME, U.S. SAYS

Officers Face Charges They Ran Drug Ring

A veteran Chicago police officer was charged Friday with working arm-in-
arm with his allegedly corrupt partner to protect a Miami-to-Chicago
drug operation.

Officer John F. Galligan was arrested as he reported for work at 7:15
a.m. at police headquarters, nearly two years after his longtime
partner, Joseph Miedzianowski, was charged with leading a double life
as a drug-busting police officer and a drug kingpin.

Partners for nearly 20 years, the two are now scheduled to go to trial
together in U.S. District Court on narcotics, extortion and weapons
charges.

The federal indictment unsealed Friday also contains new charges
against Miedzianowski, including one alleging that he and Galligan
fabricated a tip from an informant, enabling them to obtain a search
warrant to raid a drug courier's West Side apartment, where they stole
more than two pounds of cocaine that they later sold for a profit.

The two also allegedly helped an accused killer hide from law-
enforcement authorities in 1995, according to the charges.

The indictment, the fifth version in the two-year investigation,
portrays Miedzianowski as the most important player in the drug
conspiracy. He is alleged to have run the drug ring, tipping off other
dealers to the identities of informants and undercover Chicago police
officers and revealing the undercover police vehicles they used.

The new charges allege that Galligan helped Miedzianowski protect the
drug ring and shake down rival drug dealers.

Miedzianowski and Galligan worked together in the elite drug-fighting
gang crimes unit, disbanded earlier this year by Supt. Terry Hillard in
part because of the ongoing federal investigation.

While Miedzianowski has remained in custody since his arrest in
December 1998, Galligan was quickly released Friday on a $200,000 bond
after he pleaded not guilty to the five-count indictment. Assistant
U.S. Attorneys Brian Netols and John Lausch agreed to the release.

Galligan, a 22-year police veteran, had no comment as he left the
Dirksen Federal Building, but his lawyer, Joseph Roddy, defended
Galligan as "a great police officer," citing more than 100 honorable
mentions he had received.

The charges against Galligan had long been anticipated. A series of
government filings in the Miedzianowski case in recent months detailed
allegations of wrongdoing by "Police Officer A" -- Galligan, according
to sources.

But Roddy questioned the strength of the evidence, since the indictment
came 21 months after Miedzianowski was charged.

"You would think if the evidence was so clear that he'd have been
indicted long ago," Roddy said.

Galligan, 50, married and the father of three, had returned to work
Monday after several months on medical leave, battling non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma. Galligan had been stripped of his police powers in April 1999
and reassigned to desk duty at police headquarters as the federal
investigation intensified.

Miedzianowski's lawyer, Thomas Breen, declined to comment on the new
indictment.

In addition to the two police officers, 21 alleged gang members and
drug dealers have been charged with participating in the drug
conspiracy; 14 of them have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with
authorities.

A terse prepared statement released Friday by the Chicago Police
Department didn't identify Galligan by name. "It is unfortunate that a
Chicago police officer has chosen to tarnish the badge that so many
carry with dignity and honor," it said.

Galligan is a decorated Vietnam veteran who operated as a Marine
reconnaissance scout, specializing in demolition and land mine warfare,
according to his military records. His friends on the police force said
Galligan was known as a "tunnel rat," a soldier who undertook the often
risky assignment of entering underground tunnels to flush out the Viet
Cong.

Among the indictment's new charges were allegations that Miedzianowski
and Galligan robbed other drug dealers, using information supplied by
their alleged accomplices.

The two officers allegedly made false accusations in order to obtain
search warrants and then used the warrants to steal narcotics, firearms
and money from drug dealers, the charges alleged. They shared their
loot with the co-conspirators, according to the indictment.

The indictment describes how one alleged theft of a drug courier played
out in September 1995. Miedzianowski allegedly lied to obtain a search
warrant by falsely claiming one of his informants had bought a small
quantity of cocaine from the courier -- identified in earlier court
records as Evelyn Miranda -- at her apartment.

Armed with the search warrant, the two officers then allegedly stole
one of the two kilograms of cocaine they seized from Miranda and
charged her with possessing the other kilogram, according to the
indictment.

Miranda accused the officers of theft and tried to have charges
dismissed, but a Criminal Court judge sided with the officers. She was
convicted and sentenced to 24 years in prison.

After Miedzianowski was charged in late 1998, Miranda's lawyer, Barry
Spector, successfully sought a new trial. The Cook County state's
attorney's office, alerted by federal prosecutors to their
investigation, dropped the charges against Miranda.

Galligan was stripped of his police powers in 1999, after gang member
Rico Passley, in pleading guilty to narcotics charges, told federal
authorities that Galligan had once made a delivery of crack cocaine to
him in Miedzianowski's absence.

On the same day, Frederick Rock, a convicted drug dealer, told
prosecutors that Miedzianowski and Galligan had falsely named him as a
confidential informant to mislead a judge into issuing search warrants
used in drug thefts.

The indictment also accuses Galligan of helping Miedzianowski and
others hide a suspected murderer from law enforcement in 1995.

That suspect, Nelson Padilla, pleaded guilty to murder and drug-related
charges in March. According to court records, Padilla told authorities
of a successful theft of a heroin dealer in December 1998 that Padilla
had arranged. Miedzianowski and Galligan allegedly took $10,000 from
the dealer's home. Miedzianowski, in Galligan's presence, allegedly
handed Padilla an envelope filled with his share--$2,500.

"Police Officer A then hugged Padilla and told [him], 'I love it when
you are in town,'" Padilla's plea agreement said.