Donald Hersing,
being duly sworn, deposes and says:
1. My name
is Donald Hersing. From May 1981 through November 1982 I was employed
as a confidential source of information (CSI) for the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI), within an investigation relative to the Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania Police Department, which involved among other things police
extortion of payoffs for the purpose of allowing prostitution and other
vice-related activities to take place in Philadelphia's Center City area.
2. In February
1983, based largely on my testimony consequent to my work as
a CSI, the Federal Grand Jury indicted former Central Division inspector
John DeBenedetto and six other, former officers; John Smith, Abe Schwartz,
Vincent McBride, and Larry Molloy, on charges relating to conspiracy,
bribery and the extortion of money, and other considerations, to protect
prostitution and vice activities. James Carlini, the former Headquarters
Inspector in charge of the homicide division, was named as an "unindicted
co-conspirator." In May 1983 the five indicted men were tried and
I was a
central prosecution witness against them. All five were convicted. The
investigation in which I participated led to further, additional corruption
indictments and to the convictions of about two dozen other Philadelphia
police officers, including former Deputy Commissioner John Martin, and
former Inspector Alphonso Giordano, for corruption during the early 1980s.
3. Before
assisting the FBI in Philadelphia in the police corruption
investigation, I previously had worked as a private investigator, and
had
served in an investigative and CSI capacity for law enforcement agencies
in
other areas, and relative to other matters. I also worked with sophisticated
police equipment and was very familiar with sophisticated eavesdropping
and
countermeasures (de-bugging) equipment. For many years I sold sophisticated
eavesdropping and countermeasures equipment to governments in the Caribbean
region and in Latin America.
4. In the
time frame from 1981 through 1982 I was involved with the FBI in
the operation of "modeling studios" at 1245 Vine Street and
2209 Walnut
Street in Philadelphia, which were in reality houses of prostitution.
I was
also involved in the operation of an after-hours club called the "Morning
Glory" on 1437 Vine Street in Philadelphia. During the course of
the
investigation, the FBI set up cameras outside the Morning Glory in order
to
video all those who entered the club. Central Division police, including
Inspector DeBenedetto, his Lieutenant John Smith, vice officers and
uniformed officers received monetary payments and other considerations
from
me for protection of these activities and operations. Central Division
police officers also sought and received free sexual favors from the
prostitutes. It was known to me that Central Division police collected
similar payoffs and received similar considerations throughout the Center
City from prostitutes, pimps, and owners of heterosexual and homosexual
clubs and bars.
5. In May
1981 I offered to provide services as a CSI to the FBI, with
regard to payoffs to Philadelphia police personnel. I began working as
an
FBI CSI, under the direction of the United States Attorneys Office. Working
for the FBI from June 1981 to July 1982, I provided monetary payments
and
other considerations to various Philadelphia police officers in order
to
protect the prostitution and other vice activities at the "studios"
and
after-hours club I operated. With my cooperation, the FBI made audio and
video recordings of conversations between myself and corrupt police
officers, documenting payoffs which I made to the corrupt police officers.
I
also provided source information and was debriefed on a frequent and regular
basis by FBI agents concerning all aspects of my contacts and communications
with Philadelphia police personnel. The primary FBI agents I reported
to
were Mike Thompson and Andy Lash. Other FBI agents also worked on the
case
including George Sherwood.
6. During
this time frame I further became aware that there were also, at
minimum, two other ongoing investigations of Philadelphia police personnel
concurrent to the investigation I was involved in, one of which focused
on
police extortion of payoffs from homosexual, "gay" bars in Philadelphia's
Center City area. The other investigation focused on police extortion
of
payoffs from video gambling machines in bars and clubs.
7. Inspector
John DeBenedetto took over as Commanding Officer of the Central
Division of the Philadelphia Police Department on about June 1, 1981.
I
first met DeBenedetto in August 1981. At that meeting DeBenedetto personally
told me that when he took over the Central Division in June he had gathered
his officers together and informed them that from that point on all payoff
money was to be passed up to him (DeBenedetto) whereupon he would return
to
each vice squad member a sum of money, about $50. During this conversation,
DeBenedetto asked me if I had been making payments to any of his officers.
When I informed him that I had been paying $500 a month to a vice officer,
George Woods, DeBenedetto became outraged because Woods had not been
delivering that money to him (DeBenedetto), and DeBenedetto said he would
"take care of' Woods because he (Woods) had been disloyal. A
few days later
DeBenedetto told me he had demoted Woods to the status of a uniformed
officer and had transferred him to another district. I continued making
payments to DeBenedetto during the fall of 1981 and the spring of 1982
via
his Lieutenant, John Smith. The payments stopped on July 27, 1982 when
Lt.
Smith came to my apartment and told me that the police personnel would
not
be doing business with me any more.
8. I was
introduced to DeBenedetto through an East Division detective named
Abe Schwartz and through the headquarters inspector in charge of the
homicide division (and other divisions), James Carlini. I had met Schwartz
independently of the FBI investigation, through my personal accountant.
I
became friendly with Schwartz and provided him with favors of various
types,
and had the manager of my Vine Street "modeling studio" arrange a
private
party with prostitutes for Schwartz and his friends, including Carlini.
It
was Inspector Carlini who vouched for me to DeBenedetto and helped me
form
my relationship with DeBenedetto.
9. In the
course of running my business and my direct contact with Inspector
DeBenedetto, I learned that the individual street prostitutes were also
run
and controlled by the police who demanded money, sexual favors and
information from them in order for them to continue to work the streets
with
less frequent arrests. I heard about a prostitute called Cynthia White,
known as Lucky, who worked the street and also went into a rival studio
run
by a woman named Tracy.
10. Prior
to meeting DeBenedetto, during the summer of 1981, I had been
making payments of $500 or more per month to a Central Division vice officer
named George Woods. Despite my payments to George Woods, he demanded that
I
allow vice officers to make periodic arrests at the Vine Street studio
in
order to keep up the appearance of law enforcement. Woods would provide
me
advance warning of the planned arrests. I would offer a prostitute up
to be
arrested. Woods further demanded a payment of $75 to speed up the booking
of
the prostitutes, telling me he would use this money to bribe the booking
officer and court personnel to expedite the process and shorten the time
the
prostitute would spend in jail.
11. Although
Philadelphia prosecutors rarely prosecuted prostitutes
seriously, the mere fact of the arrest and booking procedure was a serious
harassment for the prostitute because it interfered with the prostitute's
ability to make money, having been removed from the opportunity to do
so for
a period of time. I made payments to the police to speed up the booking
process. While the owners of the brothels provided cash protection payments,
the individual girls were expected not only to have sex but to provide
information about individuals. If individual girls didn't pay up
, they
would be run into jail. These women had to pay and when the police needed
a
human sacrifice for a particular club, they got a human sacrifice.
12. In addition
to these regular payments to high-ranking Central Division
officials and the vice officers, we also made payments of $75 per week
to
uniformed Central Division police officers to let the Morning Glory continue
serving alcohol after 3:00 a.m., which was the mandatory termination time
for the sale of alcohol by state law. Uniformed officers would perform
routine "club checks" at the Morning Glory and other after-hours clubs
to
count the number of people at the clubs. The purpose of collecting this
information was to help them determine how much of a payoff they should
demand. Officers would also park outside of my Vine Street "modeling studio"
to count the number of customers entering the establishment, so they could
determine whether business was good or bad. On occasion when I complained
to
DeBenedetto and other Central Division officers that my business was slow,
they informed me that they knew this was not true, because they were
surveilling my businesses.
I repeat this as many times as I can buy vpxl canada and hold it as long as I can.
13. Throughout
my work as a CSI, the officers who were receiving payoffs
expressed concern about possible FBI wiretaps and surveillance regarding
their activities. It was clear they suspected that FBI investigations
were
being conducted. The officers were sometimes reluctant to physically enter
my apartment or to discuss the payoffs and related business there, and
often
insisted on meeting in restaurants or in their own cars in order to conceal
their activities. Once, during a meeting with George Woods in June 1981,
I
mentioned that I had been to a bar called the Waiting Room and Woods got
very upset and told me that the "Feds" had the Waiting Room "so f-cking
wired it ain't funny." Woods told me to stay away from that bar.
The police
often accused me of talking about their taking of payoff money and other
favors. At a meeting with spotted by police in the vicinity of 19th and
Market Streets. Schwartz told me that "everyone" was worried about the
federal officers and their investigations.
16. Schwartz asked me to help him conduct a "sweep" (a countermeasure
or
"debugging" inspection) of the East Division for "bugs." I went to the
East
Division headquarters and while there saw a police Inspector named Alphonso
Giordano. I knew Giordano personally because he often went to the Morning
Glory after-hours club. He was part of a group of police officers who
were
"all dirty"-- engaged in corruption activities. When Giordano saw me at
the
East Division, he became upset and told Schwartz that he (Schwartz) shouldn't
have brought me there, that "he [I] probably works for the f-cking FBI."
17. I began
making payments to the police again the spring of 1982 after a
meeting with DeBenedetto, in which he made very incriminating statements,
which the FBI agents and I recorded. In July 1982, Lt. John Smith told
me
the police wanted to stop doing business with me and I stopped making
the
payments.
18. I reported
all my conversations and activities with Philadelphia police
officers during this period of time to the FBI agents who ran the
investigation.