A deputy is accused of recording
a conversation with a woman who had just been arrested and sending it via cell
phone to help a “buddy’s’’ criminal case.
12-year veteran Broward Sheriff’s
Detective Anthony Costanzo was arrested and charged with witness tampering on Wednesday,
May 16, 2012.
A Broward Sheriff’s deputy who
may have been trying to help a fellow police officer was arrested Wednesday and
charged with interfering in an ongoing criminal case.
Anthony J. Costanzo, who has
appeared on the Fox television show COPS, faces charges of witness tampering,
evidence tampering, disclosure of confidential information and felony use of a
phone.
Costanzo’s lawyer, Al Milian,
said his client would plea not guilty to the charges, which he called
“completely inexplicable.”
“We think it’s politically
motivated,” Milian said.
Costanzo, 42, turned himself in
at Broward’s main jail and was released on $5,000 bond.
According to the Broward State
Attorney’s Office, Costanzo was trying to help “a buddy,” Fort Lauderdale
Detective Billy Koepke.
In November, Koepke and fellow
detective Brian Dodge were charged with racketeering, kidnapping and extortion.
Koepke and Dodge, who had been members of the Fort Lauderdale street crimes
unit known as “the Raiders,’’ are accused of stealing money and pills from pain
clinic customers.
According to previous reports in
the Sun Sentinel, the Fort Lauderdale detectives came under scrutiny after a
hotel security video contradicted their versions of two arrests they made at a
Red Roof Inn in Oakland Park. A police corruption task force turned up evidence
that Koepke and Dodge had planted crack cocaine on a man who had none and
stolen several thousand dollars that should have been turned over as evidence.
In January, a couple who had
accused Koepke with false imprisonment was pulled over in Oakland Park for
making an improper left-turn.
Five deputies responded to the
traffic stop, including Costanzo. The deputies searched the car and the woman’s
purse.
The driver Mark Mayer, 48, was
charged with driving with a suspended license; his wife, Bonita Liston, 51 was
arrested for possession of controlled substances.
Liston told the officers she had
valid prescriptions for her medications, which included a diet pill and Xanax.
But Liston was taken to the BSO
District 12 Substation. There, according to the State Attorney’s Office, she
told the deputies that she was the victim of false imprisonment in a case
involving Koepke, and that Costanzo and the other deputies reminded her of the
Fort Lauderdale officers.
Costanzo, according to
prosecutors, used his cell phone to record his discussion with Liston about the
criminal case against the two Fort Lauderdale cops.
An arrest affidavit pointed out
that the substation’s room and jail cells have recording devices in them, and
there was no need for Costanzo to record their conversation on his cell phone.
The deputy got Liston to talk
about the circumstances of her case against Koepke and also brought up her husband,
who is a witness against Koepke as well.
“Referring to the Fort Lauderdale
case against Billy Koepke, Defendant Costanzo suggested to Ms. Liston on video
that her husband had been arrested and was cooperating with police, ‘so
technically he wasn’t being kidnapped,’ ” the affidavit
said.
Later that day, Costanzo sent the
recording to Koepke’s cell phone.
He later told his BSO sergeant
that Koepke was “a buddy” of his and showed him a portion of the video on his
cell phone, saying he had sent it to “Billy” to help him in his criminal case.
That sergeant, Patrick Murray,
immediately contacted his chief, his lieutenant and the Internal Affairs
Division of Fort Lauderdale police and told them what happened.
Costanzo was suspended from duty
with pay that day, but his status has since changed to suspended without pay,
BSO spokeswoman Dani Moschella said.
Records later showed that
Costanzo sent an email with a video of part of the conversation attached to
Police Benevolent Association lawyer Claudia Estrada, the affidavit said.
An FBI analysis of the phone
showed the video has since been deleted, which “impaired its availability for
future court proceedings in Billy Koepke’s criminal case,” according to the
affidavit.
Meanwhile, Liston provided her
prescription so the State Attorney’s Office and the drug charges against her
were dropped.
Of the charges Costanzo now
faces: witness tampering is a first-degree felony punishable by up to life in
prison.