As their retrial begins, lawyers for four Miami officers say the man was a violent "career criminal" who was trying to escape.
By Associated Press
Published January 17, 2004
MIAMI - Federal prosecutors told a jury Friday that four Miami police officers "slapped, kicked, burnt and beat bloody" a handcuffed suspect. The officers' attorneys said the suspect is a career criminal who was trying to escape.
Alexander Anazco was "defenseless" when he was struck on his head and shoulders with a flashlight and a walkie-talkie and burnt with a cigarette following his 1997 arrest, federal prosecutor Jacqueline Becerra said. She gave an opening statement at the officers' retrial on charges that they violated Anazco's civil rights.
The officers' lawyers hammered at Anazco's credibility, saying he has more than 25 arrests since his teens.
Anazco is the "worst of the worst, a violent career criminal who not only lied to these police officers but to these prosecutors," defense lawyer David Markus said.
The jury in the officers' first trial couldn't agree on verdicts in October 2002, causing a mistrial.
In the meantime, three of the same officers were tried and two were convicted of helping cover up planted guns after questionable police shootings in other cases.
The incident involving Anazco began when Officers Jesse Aguero, Jorge Castello and Jorge Garcia saw him driving a souped-up Toyota Supra. Police had been seeking a car of that description for three days after someone in it threw a rock at a police car.
Riding in two unmarked vehicles, the officers tried to box in Anazco's Toyota. Becerra told the jurors Anazco "panicked, thinking it was a carjacking, and fled the scene."
Anazco was arrested later by Miami-Dade police officers who saw his car in a body shop. Aguero, Castello and Garcia, joined by Officer Wilfredo Perez, beat the handcuffed Anazco, Becerra said.
Defense lawyers said that had Anazco really thought he was being carjacked, he would have driven to a police station. Instead, they said, Anazco drove to the body shop and was getting an estimate before he tried to flee the police.
The defendants face up to five years in prison if convicted. Jury selection Thursday became a celebrity watch when singer Gloria Estefan was called as a possible juror. Prosecutors, thinking her celebrity would be a distraction, used a peremptory challenge to remove her from the jury pool.
In the earlier planted-gun case, Aguero was sentenced to more than three years in prison and Castello to 13 months. Both were fired and are free on bail while appealing their convictions. The same jury deadlocked on Garcia, who will be retried later.
