LAWYER CONVICTED OF EXTORTION
Payoff scheme involved police, former clients

A Boston lawyer was convicted yesterday of brokering payoffs from a
drug-dealer client to two former Boston police detectives who demanded the
money to dismiss cases or get the drug traffickers released from jail.
Joseph P. Murphy, a former assistant clerk magistrate at West Roxbury
District Court, was convicted of conspiring with former detectives Walter F.
Robinson Jr. and Kenneth Acerra to extort $52,000 from his clients. Robinson
and Acerra, who were charged in a federal indictment last year with stealing
more than $200,000 from drug dealers and others during police raids, pleaded
guilty last month to three charges and face up to three years in prison and
repayment of up to $100,000 each when they are sentenced next month.
However, the extortion charges involving Murphy were not among the charges
to which Robinson and Acerra have pleaded guilty.

A jury of nine women and three men deliberated about 6 1/2 hours over two
days before returning the verdict late yesterday morning. Murphy faces up to
20 years in prison on each of three counts when he is sentenced July 2 by US
District Judge Douglas P. Woodlock.

The charges against Murphy, 48, of Milton, and the two former detectives
were an outgrowth of a Globe Spotlight Team report in February 1996. Murphy
''crossed the line from defending his client to brokering extortion payoffs
to corrupt cops for the release of drug dealers,'' US Attorney Donald K.
Stern said. ''The jury's verdict makes plain that a lawyer who violates his
oath in this way may end up in federal prison.'' The case was prosecuted by
assistant US attorneys S. Theodore Merritt and Ben T. Clements of Stern's
public corruption and special prosecutions unit. Murphy's lawyer, federal
defender E. Peter Parker, called the verdict ''very disappointing'' and said
he would appeal.

During the two-week trial, government prosecutors presented evidence that
Murphy acted as a go-between, telling a client and his co-defendant how much
Robinson and Acerra were demanding to dismiss charges or derail indictments.
The two extortions stemmed from drug raids by the two detectives in May
1992. Since Robinson and Acerra have pleaded guilty to avoid trial, Murphy's
trial offered the only public glimpse into a corrupt world of phony search
warrants and stolen drug money.

Some of the most damning testimony came from Boston Police Detective John
Brazil, a former partner of Robinson and Acerra in Area E-5, which covers
Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, and West Roxbury. Brazil, who
testified under a grant of immunity, described how his mentors on the night
shift coached him to make up informants for search warrants and lie about
the surveillance of suspects.

Brazil also described finding a strongbox stuffed with at least $8,000 in
cash while on a drug raid with Robinson and Acerra in late May 1992. He said
he gave the money to Robinson, who never listed it on department reports.
Brazil testified that he overheard Robinson and Acerra talking about the
money in the detective squad room. Robinson said he knew Murphy, who was the
lawyer for one of the men arrested on the raid, cab driver and convicted
drug dealer Bruno Machore.

''I'll talk to him,'' Robinson said, according to Brazil. ''We can work this
out.'' When investigators and Globe reporters asked about the missing money
in 1996, Murphy backed up Robinson and Acerra's claim that no money was
found during that search of a West Roxbury drug den.

The cache of drug money, which prosecutors said could be twice as much as
the $8,000 estimated by Brazil, was apparently pocketed by Robinson and
Acerra. In the weeks after that drug raid, Murphy visited one of Machore's
co-defendants in prison four times and told him that for $50,000 - $25,000
each for Robinson and Acerra - he would be released from jail pending trial.
Machore testified that Murphy made the same offer to him. Though neither
paid the money, both were released after Robinson and Acerra repeatedly
failed to appear to testify before the grand jury that would eventually
indict them. Machore fled after he was released, and his co-defendant and
alleged drug boss, Saturnino Garcia, was later acquitted. In a second
extortion, Machore testified that Murphy told him he could have charges
dismissed stemming from a Jamaica Plain drug raid in early May 1992 if he
paid Robinson and Acerra $1,000 each.

According to trial evidence, Robinson lied to a judge, claiming that Machore
was not a target of the search and that the $7,500 seized from his cab was
merely taken by police for ''safekeeping.'' That same day, Murphy filed a
motion in court seeking the return of the money. He received a check from
Boston police the same day. He kept $1,500 for his legal fee and withdrew
$6,000 in cash, according to prosecutors.