DRUG CORRUPTION TRIAL BEGINS FOR FORMER POLICE COMMANDER

Nine months after a fast-rising police commander became one of the
highest-ranking officials ever indicted in a drug corruption case,
prosecutors argued in court yesterday that he had conspired with a drug
dealer and a fellow officer to steal $60,000 from a drug supplier in the Bronx.

The defendant, Dennis M. Sindone, a deputy inspector at the time of his
arrest last spring, is charged with one count of violating the drug
supplier's civil rights in connection with the robbery, in July 1996.

Mr. Sindone, 39, sat impassively in federal District Court in Manhattan
yesterday, occasionally shaking his head as Robert Noyer, a former
subordinate, testified against him. Mr. Noyer said that he and Mr. Sindone
plotted to fake an arrest of one of Mr. Noyer's drug-dealer friends just as
the dealer was delivering cash to a supplier. The three men then split the
proceeds, Mr. Noyer said. At the time, Mr. Sindone was the commander of the
60th Precinct in Brooklyn. Mr. Noyer had just joined a special robbery task
force at the 44th Precinct.

Mr. Noyer pleaded guilty last year to participating in the staged arrest
and robbery and to other charges that included a 1999 robbery in which he
used a gun. He was charged in that robbery after Jose Tavares, the drug
dealer who helped stage the arrest in 1996, implicated him, prosecutors
said. Mr. Tavares was arrested on an unrelated drug charge in May 1999.

Mr. Noyer and Mr. Tavares could have their sentences in the drug robbery
reduced because of their testimony against Mr. Sindone, officials said. Mr.
Noyer, who was released on $50,000 bail in June, faces up to 40 years in
prison, and Mr. Tavares faces a lesser sentence. Mr. Sindone's lawyer,
James Culleton, invoked those facts to cast doubt on the credibility of
their stories.

"Mr. Sindone is here because he's a lifeline for Mr. Noyer, and he's a
lifeline for Mr. Tavares," Mr. Culleton said.

Mr. Noyer said he had conceived the plan to stage a robbery in the spring
of 1996 and then persuaded Mr. Sindone and Mr. Tavares to join him. He had
become friendly with Mr. Sindone before then, when they worked together at
the 50th Precinct, often drinking together at a nearby bar after work.

On July 3, 1996, Mr. Noyer testified, he and Mr. Sindone pretended to
arrest Mr. Tavares as he arrived in a gypsy cab at the corner of Grand
Concourse and East Tremont Avenue. With bystanders watching, Mr. Noyer
handcuffed Mr. Tavares and the two officers drove off with him in a police
car. They then uncuffed Mr. Tavares and released him, warning him not to
answer calls or leave home so that the drug supplier would believe that he
had been arrested. Then they divided the money, Mr. Noyer said.

But in his opening statement, Mr. Culleton called Mr. Noyer a former drug
dealer whose "whole life has been a lie." He added that when Mr. Tavares
pleaded guilty last year in the case, he named only Mr. Noyer as a
co-conspirator. Five months later, Mr. Noyer told investigators that a
second officer was involved, but said that officer had blond hair and green
eyes, Mr. Culleton said. Mr. Sindone has dark hair.

Mr. Culleton also cast doubt on what appeared to be one of the
prosecution's strongest points, the fact that Mr. Noyer and Mr. Tavares
independently named Mr. Sindone, although not at first. Mr. Culleton said
he would introduce evidence showing that Mr. Noyer and Mr. Tavares could
have spoken during the period between Mr. Tavares's arrest in 1999 and Mr.
Noyer's arrest last year.