EX-POLICE DETECTIVES PLEAD GUILTY

Pair Agree To 3-Year Jail Terms In Conspiracy, Fraud Probe

Two veteran Boston police detectives pleaded guilty yesterday in federal
court to using their badges to steal more than $200,000 from drug dealers,
small-time gamblers, and innocent bystanders that they'd set up by lying to
secure phony search warrants.

In a deal reached just before the opening of their trial on Monday, former
detectives Walter F. Robinson Jr. and Kenneth Acerra, both 51, will spend
three years in federal prison and must repay as much as $100,000 each if a
judge accepts the plea agreement reached by federal prosecutors and defense
lawyers. If so, they will be sentenced May 21.

The surprise deal came just hours after a federal magistrate judge warned
Robinson not to intimidate potential witnesses in the case and lawyers
gathered to discuss what they could say in opening statements to jurors on
Monday.

The guilty pleas - in which Robinson and Acerra admit to three counts each
of conspiracy, civil rights violations, and tax fraud - close a sordid
chapter in Boston police history, one that exposed a mix of lax procedures
and lazy supervision that allowed the veteran detectives to indulge in a
five-year personal crime spree.

The sweeping 69-page indictment brought against the pair a year ago was
prompted by a Globe Spotlight Team report in February 1996 detailing their
routine.

Using phony search warrants, the detectives entered the homes of suspected
drug dealers and others in Area E, the Boston police district that covers
West Roxbury, Roslindale, Jamaica Plain, and Hyde Park. Once inside, the
two allegedly stole drugs, money, jewelry, and guns.

Police Commissioner Paul F. Evans, who was chief of detectives during part
of the time Robinson and Acerra committed their crimes, was in court when
the two offered their guilty pleas to US District Judge Douglas P. Woodlock.

''Certainly it's not a happy day, but in some ways it's a bittersweet
day,'' Evans said afterward. ''These officers obviously violated their
oath. They betrayed the citizens and they betrayed their fellow officers.
Today they got up and acknowledged that. I think that was very, very
important.''

Evans said the guilty pleas validated the investigation by the US
attorney's office and the corruption unit of the Boston Police Department.
''It shows the commitment of the organization to make sure that incidents
of this nature, behavior of this nature, will not be tolerated,'' he said.

Acerra, of West Newton, a police officer for 29 years, was put on paid
leave in February 1996. His pay was suspended following his indictment.
Robinson, of Belgrade, Maine, who had 26 years on the job, resigned from
the department the day before the Globe's initial story appeared.

In court yesterday, Robinson said he disputed some of the details of his
crimes, outlined by Assistant US Attorney S. Theodore Merritt. But the
former detective said he generally agreed with the outline, which included:
not turning in money seized during drug raids and underreporting the
amount, or claiming that no money was found when large amounts were.

''In many ways, it was easy,'' said Merritt, pointing to loose
record-keeping that placed the officers on the honor system when reporting
what they confiscated during searches.

In one case highlighted by Merritt, the pair pocketed an $8,000 ransom
payment given them by a man whose son had been kidnapped. ''He got his son
back,'' Merritt said, ''but he never got the ransom back.''

Another time, Robinson and Acerra took a woman's $960 rent payment, stole
$800 in restaurant receipts from a business they raided, and lifted $300
from the dresser drawer of the girlfriend of a marijuana dealer - money
from the paycheck she had just cashed.

In a May 1992 search of an apartment on Edgemere Road in West Roxbury,
$16,000 was found in a strongbox hidden under a bed. But the money was
never turned in, Merritt said.

''The money really was the incentive over the years,'' said Merritt, who
prosecuted the case along with Assistant US Attorney Ben T. Clements.

Evans acknowledged past shortcomings in the department's record-keeping,
but said they've been corrected.

''I think right now the checks and balances are in place,'' he said. ''You
learn by your mistakes ... Can somebody beat the system? If they're
hellbent on doing it I think they will, but I think we've done our very,
very best to address the issues that this case brought up.''

Robinson, who told the judge he's been seeing a psychologist and a
psychiatrist since April 1995, was dressed in the same black sweater and
black slacks he'd worn at an earlier court appearance yesterday. He pleaded
guilty to the three charges in a halting voice that dropped to a soft
murmur by the time he'd said ''guilty'' for the third time.

Earlier in the day, the federal magistrate judge's warning of Robinson not
to intimidate potential witnesses came after prosecutors asked that
Robinson's bail be revoked because he had contacted the sister-in-law of a
government witness - a direct violation of the conditions of his release.

It was the second time Robinson had allegedly contacted a witness in the
case within the last three months.

Last December, prosecutors said, Robinson contacted another government
witness and tried to get him to testify that Robinson had returned stolen
money to another witness.

Acerra was originally charged with 21 counts and Robinson with 20,
including extortion, theft, conspiracy, conspiracy to violate civil rights,
civil rights violations, and filing false income tax returns.

The counts they pleaded guilty to included conspiracy to steal more than
$200,000 and violating the civil rights of people whose homes and
businesses they searched, using bogus warrants they got by lying about
surveillance and informants. The third guilty plea was to a charge
involving not declaring the stolen money on their income tax returns for
1992.

But the plea agreement did not include the extortion charges, which
allegedly involved conspiring with a criminal defense lawyer to drop drug
charges in exchange for money. The lawyer, Joseph P. Murphy of Milton, will
be tried separately.

If Woodlock accepts the plea agreement - which he warned Robinson and
Acerra he might not - the amount Acerra owes in restitution would be
reduced by $42,790, the amount he returned once the investigation began.

© Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.