Quite the stunner, ladies and gentlemen: Greg Kaczmarek, former police chief of the city of Schenectady indicted as a drug dealer and arraigned in Schenectady County Court, with, coincidentally, another retired chief, Dick O’Connor, standing by as court security officer.
I never thought I’d see it, but there it was. My old friend Greg, with whom I had an amiable relationship during the six years (1996-2002) that he was chief, and his personable third wife, Lisa, standing grim-faced before the bench and being read their rights, first Lisa, then Greg. Lisa answering in a soft voice, Greg in a firm one: “Not guilty.”
Charges? Dealing cocaine. Dealing marijuana. Conspiracy to do same.
Six counts in all. Maximum sentence for the top charge: 8 1/3 to 25 years.
Oh me, oh my.
As you know, Lisa was already indicted back in May, along with 23 other people, including her 20-year-old son, on one count, and we all wondered back then why the attorney general’s task force didn’t rope in Greg at the same time.
On transcripts of bugged telephone conversations with Lisa’s alleged supplier, Greg’s voice appeared in the background as a kibbitzer, at one point saying, apparently with reference to a cocaine shipment, “It’s my birthday present.” I couldn’t understand why, if they were that close to him, they let him go and ended their operation by arresting his wife and the other alleged dealers.
There is still no answer to that question. The lawyer from the attorney general’s office in court this morning (Thursday) to handle the case, Michael Sharpe, told me afterwards that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo would hold a press conference to answer all such questions, but alas, Cuomo is holding no press conference, and his press office will say nothing beyond what’s in the court papers and a standard-issue press release. So I don’t know what happened during the past four months to ensnare Greg.
But now he is in deep, deep trouble, and so is Lisa, though I wouldn’t necessarily bet on the conspiracy charges holding up under a vigorous examination by an aggressive lawyer, since as far as I can make out from the indictment they are based entirely on bugged telephone conversations that are not at all explicit but instead are “coded and cryptic,” in the words of the indictment.
That means the voices on the tapes are not overtly talking about cocaine or any other drugs, nor about buying and selling, but about apparently innocuous matters of getting together and so forth, so that an uncoached listener would have no way of knowing the subject.
A prosecutor can put the pieces together and say here’s what’s going on, but a good defense lawyer might well take those pieces apart and say nothing is going on.
If the case goes to trial, I will look forward to that give and take.
But before that I expect intense negotiations between defense lawyers and prosecutors to see if a plea bargain can be worked out.
I will have more to say on this subject in my column in the Sunday Gazette.
