Published: October 19, 2009 12:29 am      

COURTS: Warme makes new push

Also appeals to U.S. District Court judge to have some charges dismissed

BUFFALO — Suspended Falls police officer Ryan Warme is now asking a U.S. District Court judge for two separate trials on a federal indictment that charges him with multiple sex crime-related civil rights violations as well as gun and drug counts.

The filing made with Chief U.S. District Court Judge Richard Arcara follows an earlier ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Hugh Scott, who found Warme’s request for two trials should be considered by the judge who would handle those trials.

Warme’s defense is seeking one trial on the so-called sex crimes and a second trial on the gun and drug charges. He is accused of violating the civil rights of three women by sexually assaulting or abusing them, using his position as a police officer to extort sexual favors from a Falls prostitute, conspiring to distribute both powdered and crack cocaine, committing federal firearms offenses and failing to arrest a known felon who was in possession of a weapon.

Defense attorney Joel Daniels has argued that Warme needed to have two trials, not one, to protect his rights. Prosecutors have said Warme should only get a single trial because all the charges against him are “bundled together.”

in his request to Arcara, Daniels repeats may of the claims he made to Scott. He also included an affidavit from Warme in which he asks to take the stand in his own defense on the sex crime charges.

“He (Warme) says, ‘I am willing to testify in the sex cases, but I am asserting my Fifth Amendment right (against self-incrimination) on the drugs and guns.’,” Daniels said. “We believe the grounds are there and the law is on our side in this (judicial) district.”

Daniels also included in his filing a copy of a decision, issued by Arcara in the case of Newfane dentist accused of embezzling money from Laborers Local 91 by filing false and fraudulent claims to the union’s dental plan and committing tax evasion. In that case, Daniels, who is the dentist’s defense attorney, made similar arguments to those he has made from Warme.

He told Arcara that the dentist wanted to take the stand, in his own defense, on the embezzlement charge, but not on the fraud and tax evasion counts.

Arcara granted the request and ordered two trials in that case.

Daniels is also asking Arcara to review Scotts’ recommendation that his effort to have several counts of the indictment against Warme dismissed be denied. Scott had rejected claims that some of the charges lodged against Warme were unconstitutional.

Yet, in a new 23-page filing with Arcara, Warme’s defense team again claims that three of the 11 counts in the indictment are unconstitutional. In the filing Daniels argues Warme can not be charged with a crime (under the Hobbs Act) that relates to obtaining “property” through extortion, when the “property” is an act of oral sex.

“The act was completed, it was over,” Daniels writes in the filing. “The sexual favor was performed. There was nothing left to transfer, assign, sell or otherwise.”

Federal prosecutors are expected to reply to the latest Warme filing in the next few weeks.