POLICE CAPTAIN ACQUITTED OF DRUG-RELATED THEFT

A Manhattan jury yesterday acquitted a high-ranking police commander of
conspiring with a fellow officer and a drug dealer to steal $60,000 from a
drug supplier in 1996.

The defendant, Capt. Dennis M. Sindone, 39, nodded, smiled, and then hugged
his wife and father after the verdict was read in Federal District Court in
Manhattan.

"Thank God the jury saw this for what it was," he said later. "I've been
through hell."

Captain Sindone was a deputy inspector when he was arrested last May,
making him one of the highest ranking commanders ever charged with
drug-related corruption. He was demoted to captain after the arrest, but
after yesterday's verdict he said he hoped to resume his career and regain
his former rank.

Captain Sindone has been on modified duty without his gun since the arrest,
and a police spokesman said last night that the department was reviewing
whether to bring departmental charges against him in connection with the
conduct alleged by the United States attorney's office.

The jury announced its verdict after a week of testimony and a day of
deliberations. Captain Sindone had been charged with one count of violating
the civil rights of the drug supplier whose money was stolen.

The prosecution's case was based heavily on the testimony of Robert Noyer,
a former police officer who said he and Captain Sindone had committed the
robbery together when both men served on the Bronx Homicide Task Force.

Mr. Noyer said the two men pretended to arrest Jose Tavares, a drug dealer
with whom Mr. Noyer was friendly, just as Mr. Tavares was about to deliver
cash to a drug supplier on July 2, 1996. With bystanders watching, the two
officers handcuffed the dealer and drove off with him in a police car, Mr.
Noyer testified, adding that they then uncuffed and released him and
divided the money.

Mr. Noyer, who pleaded guilty to participating in the robbery and other
crimes last year, said he had conceived the plan himself, and decided to
include Captain Sindone after he had proof of his willingness to break the
law. Mr. Noyer testified that he had found $300 during a police search of
an apartment in Yonkers in 1995 or 1996, and that he gave it to Captain
Sindone, who returned half and told him to keep it.

Captain Sindone's lawyer, James Culleton, impugned Mr. Noyer's credibility
from the start, saying that his "whole life had been a lie."

Mr. Culleton called two police officers to the stand to testify that
Captain Sindone's unit had been involved in only one apartment search with
a warrant in Yonkers in 1995 and 1996, and that Mr. Noyer was not present
while Captain Sindone was there.

Prosecutors highlighted telephone records showing that Captain Sindone and
Mr. Noyer had spoken shortly before the crime, and established that Mr.
Noyer could have appeared at the Yonkers apartment search without being
seen by the officers who testified for the defense.

But Captain Sindone, who testified on Monday, presented himself as an
ambitious officer whose father and uncle had worked on the force, and who
would never have compromised his integrity or risked his career by taking
part in the robbery.