Narcotics Field Unit (Liciardello, Speiser, Reynolds, Betts, Spicer, Norman)
Six Narcotics Field Unit officers were federally indicted in July 2014 and acquitted of all charges in May 2015. Before the indictment, the District Attorney had already stopped using five of them as witnesses. The Superior Court in Flick treated the DA's December 2012 letter, not the indictment or the acquittal, as the point at which their credibility became a matter of record, and the Common Pleas court has granted PCRA relief in cases built on their work.
By John A. Julian, Esq. Updated October 1, 2026. Every statement is drawn from the court document cited beside it.
- PositionOfficers Thomas Liciardello, John Speiser, Brian Reynolds, Perry Betts, Michael Spicer, and Linwood Norman, Philadelphia Police Department Narcotics Field Unit
- Status of recordIndicted in 2014 and acquitted of all charges in 2015; the District Attorney stopped calling five of the six as witnesses in 2012.
- Court record4 documented findings or disclosures; 3 PCRA-related decisions summarized below
What the courts have found or the Commonwealth has disclosed
"On December 3, 2012, Philadelphia District Attorney, R. Seth Williams, Esq., sent a letter to Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey indicating that the District Attorney's office would no longer accept Officers Speiser, Liciardello and Reynolds as witnesses in narcotics cases," would not approve warrants on which they were affiants, and would not charge cases in which they were necessary witnesses. The Superior Court held the letter "goes beyond merely challenging their credibility by rendering the officers incompetent to testify."
Source: Commonwealth v. Flick, No. 3053 EDA 2011 (Pa. Super. Apr. 24, 2015), on remand from 103 A.3d 1224 (Pa. 2014)
The six officers were indicted in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on July 29, 2014 (Otto). One petitioner claimed he learned on August 6, 2014 that Liciardello "was indicted by a grand jury ... on charges of conspiracy, robbery, extortion, possession with intent to deliver cocaine, and falsification of records"; the indictment "lists 22 specific cases of alleged police wrongdoing."
Source: Otto v. Williams, No. 16-3072 (3d Cir. July 27, 2017); Commonwealth v. Vargas, No. 1461 EDA 2012 (Pa. Super. Feb. 27, 2015)
"The officers were acquitted of all 47 charges on May 14, 2015." According to the Third Circuit, the District Attorney's December 2012 decision covered all six officers except Norman (the Superior Court in Flick described the letter as naming six officers). A July 10, 2015 arbitration order directed that the officers be reinstated with back pay.
Source: Otto v. Williams, No. 16-3072 (3d Cir. July 27, 2017)
"In July 2014, the Officer Defendants were indicted and charged with numerous criminal offenses, and in June 2019, the common pleas court granted Gordon's PCRA petition and ordered all charges nolle prossed." The federal court described Gordon's case as "one of many involving members of the Philadelphia Police Department's Narcotics Field Unit."
Source: Gordon v. Liciardello, No. 19-3761 (E.D. Pa. July 25, 2024)
PCRA cases involving Narcotics Field Unit
Commonwealth v. Kevin Gordon
Relief. PCRA petition granted in June 2019 on a 2007 guilty plea; all charges nolle prossed. Liciardello, Speiser, Reynolds, Betts, Spicer, and Norman were named defendants in the later civil action.
Timeliness. Not stated.
Commonwealth v. Joseph Flick
Relief on direct appeal. Appeal dismissed without prejudice and Flick granted leave to file a nunc pro tunc post-sentence motion on after-discovered evidence of Narcotics Field Unit corruption; Liciardello was the affiant and a trial witness and Speiser the principal surveillance witness. The court distinguished Castro because the DA's letter and the federal charges were more than newspaper allegations.
Timeliness. Direct appeal, so no PCRA deadline; the court dated the public revelations to December 2012 news coverage and the December 3, 2012 letter.
Commonwealth v. Jose Vargas
Denied. Motion to remand refused; the 2014 indictment did not list Vargas's case, and general evidence of Liciardello's wrongdoing would be used solely to impeach. The Superior Court's earlier grant of relief based on newspaper allegations had been vacated after Castro.
Timeliness. Direct appeal; not a PCRA timeliness ruling.
When the misconduct became public: the dates that control the deadline
December 3, 2012 (DA letter and news coverage, Flick); July 29, 2014 (indictment, Otto), with one petitioner claiming discovery on August 6, 2014 (Vargas); May 14, 2015 (acquittal, Otto). Note that Norman was not covered by the December 2012 letter, so his date is the indictment.
What this means for a petition. The acquittal does not end the analysis. The DA's 2012 letter declaring these officers unusable as witnesses is what the Superior Court found significant in Flick, and the District Attorney's withdrawal and dismissal of hundreds of drug cases involving these officers, noted in Otto, reflects that position. A petitioner whose conviction rests on one of these officers should determine whether the case was among those already vacated; if not, the petition must confront a clock that started, at the latest, in mid-2014, which means pleading a case-specific fact that could not have been discovered then.
Was this officer involved in a case you know? The first step is to determine whether the case has already been vacated and, if not, what date the courts will treat as the start of the one-year clock. Request a case review or call (215) 568-0607.
This page reports what courts have found, what parties have stipulated, and what the Commonwealth has disclosed, as stated in the cited opinions. Allegations are identified as allegations. It is general information, not legal advice, and is not a statement about any officer beyond what the cited documents say.