questioning the OCS’s evidence. “Leaser was a weird guy,” Fisten says. “But I didn’t believe he’d wreck a case over funny feelings he had about me being with a secretary.”
When I phoned Leaser, who retired in 2009, he told me, “I didn’t have anything personal with that Metro homicide detective. I thought he was a dirty cop.” I didn’t ask Leaser about Fisten’s relationship with a woman in his office, but he brought it up. “I used to see him hanging around with one of the secretaries in my office,” Leaser said. “I happened to know that this detective was married. This man was a liar.”
Leaser’s indignation at Fisten’s sexual comportment—still raw when we spoke—was somewhat baffling, given his role in a 1990 episode that local papers had dubbed “the Zipper Incident.” It happened in a meeting with opposing lawyers in a felony case. During a break, Leaser reportedly approached a female public defender, unzipped his trousers, and told her, “This is for your benefit.” Leaser passed this off as a joke gone wrong, and after a quick suspension Reno reinstated him. Fairly or unfairly, his reputation was cemented, earning him a new nickname: “Zipper Man.”
“I was being called out for leaving my wife by the Zipper Man,” says Fisten. “I believed his personal attacks on me were a smokescreen.”
In the fall of 1991, OCS detectives transcribed a jail phone conversation in which Albert appeared to dictate a message for Lourdes to deliver to Leaser:
Now, Leaser, look. We gave you thirty thousand dollars. You want more money, and we haven’t gotten a fucking thing done.
Investigators also found other apparent references Albert made about bribing Leaser. Confidential information from the state attorney’s office was leaked to Albert’s attorney. Later, a call emerged in which Albert’s attorney told Albert he was meeting Leaser in order to “dirty up Fisten.”
When I asked Leaser about the matter, he said, “If allegations had been raised they would have been looking at my hemorrhoids. No such thing happened. I was never investigated.”
Former OCS investigators say they did present a memo outlining their concerns and shared incriminating tapes with a senior federal prosecutor, Bill Keefer, who declined to comment about it when I asked him, citing confidentiality rules. According to Morciego, someone in the MDPD apparently warned Leaser about the OCS’s effort to have him investigated. Albert ceased talking about bribes on the phone, Morciego says, and “the trail went cold.”
Days after some OCS investigators allege that Leaser was warned, he sent a memo to MDPD supervisors stating that he had grave concerns about Fisten’s credibility. Because Fisten had a clean record inside and was on assignment to a federal task force, there was little the department could do, but he was transferred out of Homicide. The move had no impact on his work at the OCS, but it stripped him of his “homicide detective” title within the MDPD.
Everyday Miracles
In his conversations with Lourdes, Albert increasingly spoke of spiritual matters. By late 1991, he would pray with her and end his calls with the affirmation “There’s a miracle every day.” At the end of the year, he reaped a bounty of them. The same day Fisten was drummed out of Homicide, Southern District judge Jose Gonzales issued a ruling upholding Albert’s immunity, writing:
It is critical that the United States government keep its word. The foundation of the Republic will not crack if the United States fails to put Alberto San Pedro in a federal prison. It will shatter, however, if the American people come to believe that their government is not to be trusted.
Gonzales’s opinion detailed legal errors in the agreement and noted Dexter Lehtinen’s role in negotiating it. Days after Gonzales issued his opinion, Lehtinen resigned from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. His departure came a few weeks before
When I phoned Leaser, who retired in 2009, he told me, “I didn’t have anything personal with that Metro homicide detective. I thought he was a dirty cop.” I didn’t ask Leaser about Fisten’s relationship with a woman in his office, but he brought it up. “I used to see him hanging around with one of the secretaries in my office,” Leaser said. “I happened to know that this detective was married. This man was a liar.”
Leaser’s indignation at Fisten’s sexual comportment—still raw when we spoke—was somewhat baffling, given his role in a 1990 episode that local papers had dubbed “the Zipper Incident.” It happened in a meeting with opposing lawyers in a felony case. During a break, Leaser reportedly approached a female public defender, unzipped his trousers, and told her, “This is for your benefit.” Leaser passed this off as a joke gone wrong, and after a quick suspension Reno reinstated him. Fairly or unfairly, his reputation was cemented, earning him a new nickname: “Zipper Man.”
“I was being called out for leaving my wife by the Zipper Man,” says Fisten. “I believed his personal attacks on me were a smokescreen.”
In the fall of 1991, OCS detectives transcribed a jail phone conversation in which Albert appeared to dictate a message for Lourdes to deliver to Leaser:
Now, Leaser, look. We gave you thirty thousand dollars. You want more money, and we haven’t gotten a fucking thing done.
Investigators also found other apparent references Albert made about bribing Leaser. Confidential information from the state attorney’s office was leaked to Albert’s attorney. Later, a call emerged in which Albert’s attorney told Albert he was meeting Leaser in order to “dirty up Fisten.”
When I asked Leaser about the matter, he said, “If allegations had been raised they would have been looking at my hemorrhoids. No such thing happened. I was never investigated.”
Former OCS investigators say they did present a memo outlining their concerns and shared incriminating tapes with a senior federal prosecutor, Bill Keefer, who declined to comment about it when I asked him, citing confidentiality rules. According to Morciego, someone in the MDPD apparently warned Leaser about the OCS’s effort to have him investigated. Albert ceased talking about bribes on the phone, Morciego says, and “the trail went cold.”
Days after some OCS investigators allege that Leaser was warned, he sent a memo to MDPD supervisors stating that he had grave concerns about Fisten’s credibility. Because Fisten had a clean record inside and was on assignment to a federal task force, there was little the department could do, but he was transferred out of Homicide. The move had no impact on his work at the OCS, but it stripped him of his “homicide detective” title within the MDPD.
Everyday Miracles
In his conversations with Lourdes, Albert increasingly spoke of spiritual matters. By late 1991, he would pray with her and end his calls with the affirmation “There’s a miracle every day.” At the end of the year, he reaped a bounty of them. The same day Fisten was drummed out of Homicide, Southern District judge Jose Gonzales issued a ruling upholding Albert’s immunity, writing:
It is critical that the United States government keep its word. The foundation of the Republic will not crack if the United States fails to put Alberto San Pedro in a federal prison. It will shatter, however, if the American people come to believe that their government is not to be trusted.
Gonzales’s opinion detailed legal errors in the agreement and noted Dexter Lehtinen’s role in negotiating it. Days after Gonzales issued his opinion, Lehtinen resigned from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. His departure came a few weeks before
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