Published: June 30, 2009 10:01 pm      

COURTS: Prosecutors blast Warme requests

Call suspended Falls officer “ a cop gone bad, very bad”

BUFFALO — A hearing on a move for separate trials or the dismissal of charges against suspended Falls Police Officer Ryan Warme was delayed in federal court on Tuesday.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Hugh Scott moved arguments on the requests from Warme’s defense team to July 29.

However, prosecutors in the case, in papers filed on Monday, blasted both the call for the dismissal of charges and the request for separate trials on sex charges and gun and drug counts.

Warme’s defense attorney, Joel Daniels, had argued that if his client is forced to stand trial on all the charges he faces at one time, the result would be “substantial prejudice” to his client.

Warme, Daniels says, is prepared to take the stand to testify in his own defense against charges he violated the civil rights of three women and used his position as a police officer to extort sexual favors from a Falls prostitute. However, Warme would not take the stand to defend himself against charges he conspired to distribute both powder and crack cocaine, committed federal firearms offenses and failed to arrest a known felon in possession of a weapon.

Assistant United States Attorney Anthony Bruce asked Scott to reject the request because the crimes are all tied together.

“They are literally a part of a crime wave perpetrated by (Warme) which grew out of his position as a police officer and ... are each part of the defendant’s ‘common scheme’ to deprive the NFPD of his duty to render honest services,” Bruce wrote. “Each of the counts in the indictment involves the defendant’s use or abuse of his position as a City of Niagara Falls Police Officer in committing the crimes with which he is charged.”

Bruce also contests defense claims that two federal statutes, as they are applied to the crimes Warme is charged with, are unconstitutional. Particularly, as the law applies to the sex crime charges, Bruce argues the defense claims have no merit.

“The defendant asks the court to consider whether (the law) would give a person of ordinary intelligence an opportunity to know he could be prosecuted for receiving uncompensated sexual favors from a prostitute as a public official,” Bruce wrote. “A person of ordinary intelligence would know that a police officer is prohibited from using his official position to secure uncompensated sexual favors, especially while on duty.”