Louima

June 28, 1999
Web posted at: 9:57 p.m. EDT (0157 GMT)

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Two more New York police officers were arraigned in federal court Monday in the case of Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant who was beaten and sodomized with a wooden stick in a Brooklyn police precinct bathroom.

Plainclothes officers Rolando Aleman and Francisco Rosario from the Street Crimes Unit pleaded not guilty to charges that they lied to investigators about what they saw the night Louima was beaten.

The two were freed on $100,000 bond.

Last month, Officer Justin Volpe pleaded guilty to beating and sodomizing Louima in the bathroom of the 70th precinct.

Aleman and Rosario were in the precinct on the night of the attack, and prosecutors believe the two saw Volpe place Louima in a holding cell. But the officers told investigators that Louima was already in the holding cell when they saw him.

Also appearing in court Monday for a hearing were officers Charles Schwarz, Thomas Wiese and Thomas Bruder. Those three officers face another trial on obstruction of justice charges stemming from the Louima beating.

Schwarz was convicted by a jury earlier this month of violating Louima's civil rights. He faces a possible life sentence for holding Louima down while Volpe sodomized him.

Wiese, Bruder and another police officer were acquitted by the jury in that trial.

Louima suffered severe internal injuries in the beating, from which he is still recovering. The attack at the precinct came after he was arrested during a brawl outside a Brooklyn nightclub.

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