Casino guard admits covering for cops

Bill Gang

Thursday, March 28, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

A key witness in the brutality trial of three Metro Police bicycle patrolmen admitted in court that he tried to cover up the officers' actions in a report he wrote after the incident.

The report stated that coin theft suspect Andrew Dersch tried to escape from the officers and had to be tackled, cutting his head as he fell.

But Fremont hotel-casino security officer Robert Harsha said he got his "butt chewed" by his supervisor when his report of the June 11 incident didn't match a videotape that had recorded events in the casino's security office.

The video shows Dersch, 39, sitting passively after being apprehended for the alleged theft of a coin cup from an elderly gambler earlier in the day.

Dersch, however, refuses to give his true name and the video shows Officer Robert Phelan calling him a liar and slamming his fist into Dersch's chest.

Dersch is then thrown into another room where the camera couldn't see but where threats made by Officer Brian Nicholson to sodomize him with a police baton can be heard, along with cries of pain from the victim.

Harsha said the cries came when Nicholson kicked and stood on Dersch's knee in an effort to make him reveal his true identity.

The third defendant is Sgt. James Campbell, 48, who witnesses said sought the destruction of the videotape. The trio is charged with conspiracy, oppression under the color of law and filing a false police report.

Harsha, testifying for the third day, said he wrote two new reports for the Fremont truthfully recounting the confrontation that left a pool of Dersch's blood on the floor from the cut on his head.

His supervisor, Tammy Lambright, told the jury in District Judge Lee Gates' courtroom that she made it clear to Harsha there would be repercussions if he didn't tell the truth.

Harsha, who said he still considers himself to be friends with the defendants, swore that he testified truthfully but defense attorneys pointed out numerous contradictions in the story he told jurors and his earlier statements.

The frazzled security officer finally was excused at noon Wednesday.

Jurors, who have already viewed the videotape, heard a second version of events Wednesday from security lieutenant Charles Medwin, who said he was in the second office when Dersch came "airborne" across his desk.

Medwin testified that he assumed by the violent turn the incident took, scattering his papers and spilling his coffee, that Dersch had attacked the officers or tried to flee.

Medwin said he left the room so as not to interfere with the officers.

He admitted he was uncomfortable with what was occurring but never asked the officers to stop, explaining that "when Metro arrives, they're in charge."

Medwin recalled looking into the room and seeing Dersch "in a fetal position with his trousers below his buttocks" and Nicholson standing over him with a PR-24 police baton in his hand.

Dersch, he said, cried out to him, "How could you let this happen?"

Under questioning by Deputy District Attorney David Schwartz, Medwin said he never witnessed any provocation by Dersch or considered Dersch to be a threat to his safety.

After Dersch, who may testify Friday when the trial resumes, was taken by paramedics to have his wound stitched, Medwin said Campbell asked him "if I was going to take care of the tape."

He said he considered that a request to destroy the evidence of violence.

"I said don't worry about it," Medwin recalled. "I wanted to defuse the situation. I wanted it to end. I wanted him to think that I would confiscate and destroy the tape.

"I wanted them all to leave," the security shift supervisor said.

Dersch had been apprehended originally about 10:30 p.m. on June 11 on the belief of security guards that he was one of two men who earlier in the day had stolen a cup of coins from a slot machine player.