predator/bentcops.txt

This is a document which attempts to describe some aspects of endemic
corruption in the NSW police force, specifically during the period around
1979 to present. It is a transcript from a conversation with Blackheath
Flowers 7th September 2000.


Thoughts on the mysterious Rick and Luke.

During the period about 1979-80, "Rick" a.k.a. Richard Seary, was active
in the Kings Cross region. Rick's main occupations, assisted by his
partner Luke, were narcotics dealing and unsolicited surgery without a
license to practise medicine. Rick's primary employer for surgery and
general miscellaneous public nuisances was an anonymous, tall Australian
gent <large finger pads> who drove a Monaro who used to enjoy the
hospitality of the Bourbon and Beefsteak, a well known watering hole for
NSW detectives and CIA agents of the time. Rick was facing a lot of gaol
time for narcotics dealing and inept surgical procedures on unwilling
patients, but was able to remain in circulation owing to his other role as
a police informer. Rick had also insinuated himself into various
aboriginal groups.

Rick and probably many other informers find themselves in their role
because their previous involvment in the narcotics distribution system.
The informer-to-be, usually sourced from a position of socioeconomic
vulnerability, is threatened with prosecution if they fail to reveal
information on people involved in other (alleged) criminal activity in the
locale. Since illegal drug transactions are a victimless crime, and there
are no complaints raised about lack of prosecutions of disposable,
small-time dealers and habitual users, there is never any pressure on the
police to reveal the identities of their informants.




Regarding Rodney Podesta.

Rodney Podesta recently came to some notoriety as one of the police officers
responsible for the shooting of Roni Levi on Bondi Beach in 1998. He was not
subsequently charged for this shooting. He has some other interesting personal 
historical aspects which have not yet seen the light of newsprint. Some of
these serve to highlight the entrenched nature of corruption in the NSW police
force.

Rodney Podesta, having failed both of the maximum permissible two applications
to join the NSW police force, was subsequently permitted to join the NSW police
as a trainee police officer when he applied for admission a third time. These
circumstances for admission are highly unusual. Applicants who have failed two
attempts at admission are, without exception, refused a third application.
Unless, of course, they have relatives who hold high office in the NSW Police
training Academy at Goulburn. Rodney was subsequently permitted to undergo
training and graduated as a probationary NSW police constable in 1996, despite
te knowledge that he had many friends and associations over many years in the
Kings Cross area, which would, one might expect, have rased a red flag about
Rodney's suitability to perform as a law enforcement officer at all, let alone
in the Kings Cross region.

Rodney Podesta's now deceased father, Joe Podesta, long-time owner of the
Piccolo Coffee Shop in Kings Cross, was brought up before two Royal Commissions
and was reputed to be involved in three gang wars of an unspecified nature.
This establishment provided a safe haven where cannabis dealing could occur
without any intervention by the local police, and this is the reason for the
immunity of this establishment to harassment by local police and emerging
criminal gangs in the region.

Rodney Podesta was initially posted to the Rose Bay precinct upon
graduation. The choice of assignment was determined in part by the nature
of the associations he had made in his preferred and subsequent region of
operation, which was Kings Cross. Rodney, during his time as an
adolescent, was occupied on Wednesday nights supervising the running of
the Piccolo Coffee shop, which one might expect swayed the development of
Rodney's character and view of the world and his place in it. Much of the
Piccolo's clientele represented a less law-abiding and honest section of
the community than one might prefer as an environment in which a
upstanding adolescent might be expected to develop within. Rodney was,
through his father's ownership of the Piccolo, exposed to influences which
certainly shaped his later choice of carreer and his attitude towards it.

Rodney was bored (and not sufficiently remunerated) by his initial assignment
and, because he wanted to "see some action" applied for a transfer. This led to
his reassignment to the Bondi Beach police station. 

It is alleged that there was unusual behind-the-scenes police computer
database activity in which Rodney was involved. Access to the police files
is logged, but this logging does not ensure that access to these files is
made for valid reasons - for instance, an officer or other individual with
access to the files could conjure up a reason like "suspected stolen car",
enter the license plate details and see what - and who - comes up.

The actual nature of Rodney's accessions was never determined, but an
indication of their significance is given by the fact that neither the
state or federal police investigated this activity - and this activity was
never investigated in the courts. The only organisation which investigated
Rodney's activities prior to the shooting or Roni Levi was ASIO, who
installed a surveillance camera into the cieling of his Randwick unit (via
the floor of the unit above).

The issue here is not that Rodney was corrupt, but rather that Rodney was
an instrument of a system with corruption so entrenced that it encouraged
and fostered corruption as a way of life for law enforcement officers.
What does it say that in order to run the police force in NSW that one has
to appoint a person from another country to do the job, and that the first
major change he implemented was to prevent the Goulburn Police Academy
from functioning as a manufacturing plant for additional institutionalised
and generational corruption and nepotism in the police force.