By George Anastasia
Philadelphia Inquirer
| Related Article: Philly officer suspended over allegations of home invasion |
PHILADELPHIA — He drove a Dodge Intrepid tricked out like a police narcotics unit undercover car, with tinted windows, lights, sirens, a police radio console, and a screen that separated the front and back seats.
He had his gun.
And, more important, he had his badge.
Those, federal prosecutors say, were the tools of the trade for rogue Philadelphia cop Malik Snell as he targeted suspected narcotics dealers, pulled them over, and stole their cash or their drugs.
Snell, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, robbery, and witness retaliation, is to go on trial today in U.S. District Court. In October, a trial on some of the charges ended with a hung jury.
An 11-year veteran of the Police Department who was assigned to the 18th District in West Philadelphia, Snell, 36, was fired last year after his arrest in a Pottstown home-invasion case. Two superseding federal indictments have expanded the charges against him.
Among other things, he is now accused of robbing one of the biggest drug kingpins in South Philadelphia and later threatening to kill him because he was cooperating.
The kingpin, Ricardo McKendrick Jr., is expected to be called as a witness for the prosecution.
McKendrick, according to motions filed in the case, has alleged that he was stopped by Snell on Dec. 14, 2007, near Water and Dickinson Streets in South Philadelphia.
Snell, driving the Dodge Intrepid, flashed the car’s lights and signaled for McKendrick, who was driving a minivan, to pull over.
Federal prosecutors allege that Snell “removed him from the [minivan] and placed him in handcuffs. . . . Snell then searched the [minivan] and took a diaper bag from the back of the van which contained $40,000 in drug proceeds.
“He put the diaper bag in the trunk of the Intrepid and left [McKendrick] handcuffed and unable to leave,” according to a motion filed by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kathy A. Stark and Leo R. Tsao, the prosecutors in the case.
Snell was arrested three days later in connection with an unrelated home invasion in Pottstown. Two men, including his brother-in-law, were charged with breaking into a house where they believed drug money was stashed.
Authorities allege that Snell drove the men to Pottstown and waited outside during the break-in. He and his brother-in-law were arrested after a high-speed police chase, just outside the Montgomery County borough.
Both the brother-in-law, Tyree Aimes, and a second defendant pleaded guilty before trial. Snell’s trial ended with a hung jury.
Federal prosecutors, apparently using information supplied by McKendrick and others, have since expanded the charges against Snell. He is being held without bail in the Federal Detention Center on Arch Street.
In the new trial, prosecutors hope to use Aimes’ account of other incidents to undermine Snell’s assertion that he was an unwitting accomplice, unaware that a robbery was planned on the night of the home invasion.
Snell’s attorney, John McMahon of Norristown, has declined to comment about specifics of the case. He is expected to attack the credibility of several government witnesses who come from the drug underworld.
Aimes, according to one prosecution document, has talked about other encounters in which, he says, Snell targeted drug dealers.
Aimes has said that before the Pottstown home invasion, Snell used him to stake out two houses in Philadelphia where narcotics trafficking was allegedly taking place.
After showing him the Intrepid, which Snell allegedly said came from “a friend in the narcotics unit,” Aimes said, Snell told him, “I have a job to do” at one of the suspected drug houses.
One house was off the corner of D Street and Allegheny Avenue, and the other was on Callowhill Street between 63d and 64th Streets, according to documents.
Aimes said Snell told him the house on Callowhill was frequently used by a Jamaican marijuana dealer. Aimes said he was watching when Snell, driving the Intrepid, pulled over a woman who had come from the house carrying a bag. The woman was driving a Chevy Malibu, he said.
“Snell pulled the Intrepid out behind her, activated the police lights and pulled the Malibu over,” according to a prosecution motion that outlines Aimes’ account.
About two hours later, Aimes said, Snell came to his home and gave him a pound of marijuana.
“He told him he had gotten ten pounds of weed from the car stop,” according to the motion.
Aimes told authorities that he staked out the house off Allegheny Avenue several times for Snell, but that nothing occurred there.
About the same time, Aimes said, he learned about drug money being stashed in a house in Pottstown and told Snell he “had a job” there.
Snell, he said, agreed to participate.
The Callowhill Street incident is not part of the current indictment, but prosecutors hope to use testimony about it to establish a pattern of criminal activity by Snell.
The charges in the case include the Pottstown home invasion, the robbery of $40,000 from McKendrick, and allegations that Snell later threatened to kill McKendrick and another suspected witness.
McKendrick’s father, Ricardo McKendrick Sr., is a former member of the Black Mafia and a longtime Philadelphia drug trafficker, according to investigators who have described the duo as “suppliers to the suppliers” and key players in the Philadelphia drug underworld.
The McKendricks were arrested in April after members of an FBI-Philadelphia Police Department Violent Gang and Drug Task Force raided their South Philadelphia rowhouse.
Authorities found more than 600 pounds of cocaine valued at more than $28 million in the house, in Grays Ferry. It was one of the biggest drug seizures in city history.
The FBI also found nearly $1 million in cash in the trunk of the younger McKendrick’s Mercedes, which was parked in the garage of his South Jersey home.
Both McKendricks entered guilty pleas to drug charges in December. Most of the documents in the younger McKendrick’s court file relating to his plea have been placed under seal.
McKendrick’s decision to cooperate could have ramifications far beyond the current case against Snell. McKendrick’s potential debut as a government witness has created a stir in both law enforcement and underworld circles.
Snell allegedly made the threat to “inflict bodily harm” on McKendrick on Jan. 30, shortly after news accounts raised the possibility that he might be cooperating.
Copyright 2009 Philadelphia Inquirer