LAWYER: OFFICER TO PLEAD GUILTY IN TORTURE CASE

Court: Justin Volpe is the central figure in a trial of five policemen
charged with violating a black immigrant's civil rights.

New York-A police officer accused of torturing a prisoner in a police
station house will change his plea to guilty, his lawyer told a federal
judge.

"If your honor can see fit to give us some time tomorrow we would like to
enter a plea," attorney Marvyn Kornberg, lawyer for officer Justin Volpe,
said Monday in a private discussion with the trial judge made available
through a transcript.

Volpe is the central figure in a trial of five officers charged with
violating of five officers charged with violating the civil rights of a
black Haitian immigrant, who testified he was sodomized with a broom handle
and beaten.

News of the plea came after several days of testimony by four police
officers who said they saw Volpe brandishing a stick the night he is alleged
to have tortured Abner Louima in a bathroom of a Brooklyn police station on
Aug. 9, 1997.

The case against the four remaining officers was expected to proceed. A
source connected with the prosecution who requested anonymity said there is
no agreement with Volpe on a recommended sentence.

Both Kornberg and the prosecutor refused to comment on the plea.

Volpe is charged with several civil-rights violations. An alleged violation
pertaining to the bathroom assault carries a maximum sentence of life in
prison without parole.

Volpe, 27, is accused of ramming a stick into Louima's rectum and mouth in a
fit of rage because he mistakenly thought Louima, 32, punched him in a
disturbance outside a Brooklyn nightclub.

Volpe's co-defendants, officers Charles Schwarz, Thomas Wiese and Thomas
Bruder, are charged with violating Louima's rights by taking turns beating
him en route to the station. Schwarz also is accused of holding down Louima
in the bathroom attack.

A fifth defendant, Sgt. Michael Bellomo, is charged with covering up the
incident.

Kornberg, normally combative, had implied in opening statements he would try
to show that Louima was injured during consensual sex before he go involved
with police.