HARD CASE: Former Detective Louis Scarcella insists the slay confession he obtained from now-exonerated ex-con David Ranta is legit. (AP)
He allegedly browbeat witnesses and railroaded suspects, but the retired Brooklyn homicide detective with 50 cases now under review insists he did nothing wrong — and that a killer has been freed.
“I’m standing up for myself because it’s the truthful thing to do,” said Louis Scarcella, 61, a decorated cop involved in more than 300 murder probes during the blood-soaked 1980s and 1990s.
In an exclusive interview, he offered a detailed defense of his record, which came under attack in The New York Times and is the focus of an internal probe by Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes.
The case that triggered this scrutiny — the recently overturned conviction of David Ranta — started with Alan Bloom, the wheel man in a plot to rip off $250,000 in gems from a Williamsburg courier in 1990, and ended with a rabbi’s murder.
Bloom knew Ranta only as “David from Kensington,” a fellow thief who had asked Bloom to steal a car and drive with him to the jeweler’s home, Scarcella said.
“He didn’t know his last name, so we drove around looking for [Ranta],” the detective said of the first stages of his probe. “Bloom was telling us about Alison, a prostitute. She and Ranta were doing it. All of a sudden, he yells, ‘There she is!’ ”
“I jumped out and said, ‘I’m looking for a guy named David,’ and I gave her my card. She said, ‘You mean David who killed that rabbi?’ ”
Bloom picked out his cohort from among thousands of mug shots, passed a lie-detector test and described the killing in detail, Scarcella said.
“He dropped off Ranta and was supposed to double park down the block. But instead, he parked the car. Ranta followed the courier, but he was feisty and he gets away and takes off. Ranta panicked.
“He couldn’t find the getaway car — he was looking both ways — so he ran across the street where this rabbi was idling. Bloom said Ranta pulled him out of the car and shot him twice.”
The detective found Ranta and hauled him down to Central Booking, where the suspect came clean, Scarcella says.
“I said, ‘You come from 66th Street. I come from 66th Street. We’re both Italian. Why don’t you tell me the truth?’
“So he says, ‘Yeah, you’re right. I was there. I was involved in the robbery. Things went bad. I left when the shots were fired. I didn’t shoot the guy.’ ”
Scarcella hastily scribbled this down on a manila folder with all the case paperwork.
“I didn’t have my pad, so that’s what I wrote on.”
His partner, Steve Chmil, was thrilled. “Louie was trying to get down as much as he can. I said, `This is great. At least we know he was there.’ “
The two felt the full weight of Ranta’s admission. The chief suspect in the most notorious slaying in the city “had just implicated himself in felony murder,” all but assuring a conviction and lengthy sentence, Scarcella said.
“I believe he signed it in three places. [Prosecutor] Barry Schreiber was ecstatic. He said it was a very compelling statement.”
Later, Ranta denied making the confession, but the statement was used at trial, and he spent 23 years in prison.
He was freed two months ago after another witness claimed to have been coached, saying an unknown cop directed him to “pick the guy with the big nose” in a police lineup.
“I did not say this detective,” Max Lieberman, the witness, told The Post.
Scarcella’s reliance on Teresa Gomez, a drug-addicted hooker, has also raised concerns. She testified in five murder cases, Scarcella said, including two involving drug dealer Robert Hill.
How could one person see so much death?
“It’s weird, but it’s the truth,” Scarcella said. “She roamed the streets.”
“The notion that a crackhead could witness more than one murder might seem ridiculous,” said Joel Cohen, a prosecutor who worked with Scarcella. “But she was polygraphed three times, and passed every time.”
In the first Hill case, a medical examiner said evidence didn’t back Gomez’s claim that the victim was shot through a pillow. He was acquitted.
Months later, Medical Examiner Bev Leffers came forward and admitted she’d made a mistake, Scarcella said.
“She felt bad — she redid her tests. Teresa proved the ME wrong. Hill did shoot through a pillow.”
Many who worked with Scarcella described him as dogged, reliable and charismatic and said his work was aggressively vetted by prosecutors and by Joe Ponzi, the DA’s respected head of investigations.
“We had a lot of checks and balances,” said one ex-prosecutor.
They pointed out that in Brooklyn cops could not arrest a murder suspect without the OK from a supervising DA.
“They wouldn’t allow it,” Scarcella said. “We worked as a team.”
Regarding Ranta, Scarcella has no doubts.
“David is guilty of felony murder,” he said. “He is not this innocent guy. He confessed. And he knows he gave me that statement.”