Goldfish Bowl (Cont'd)

His Adam's apple smashed, one Hyman Stark, petty thug, strangled to death after a third-degreeing in Nassau County police headquarters at Mineola, L. I. last fortnight (TIME, July 25). Last week a deputy chief, a lieutenant, eight detectives (onequarter of the county's detective force) and three patrolmen were indicted for the crime on charges ranging from manslaughter to assault. All were likewise accused of a conspiracy to obstruct justice. Wealthy, socialite Nassau County was rudely shocked.

How Stark, arrested with three companions for beating and robbing a detective's mother, had been killed was the subject of a John Doe investigation conducted before Supreme Court Justice Steinbrink. Stark's companions, black & blue from rough treatment, told their story: "They took us in and handcuffed us to chairs. A big guy came in with a panama hat and hit us. ... They took us downstairs and beat us with a rubber hose. ... I was hit once by a shoe on my head and pulled by my hair. . . . Stark was lying unconscious on the floor and a man standing over him with a rubber hose. . . . They were hitting Stark with billies and kicking him. ... I heard Stark screaming."

That Stark had been taken down to a shower room in police headquarters, stripped and beaten was clearly established. But who mauled, pummeled, kicked and belabored him to force a confession, none of Nassau County's police could remember. Justice Steinbrink declared the police testimony was shot through with perjury. Crack detectives, sweating with fear, showed a forgetfulness which should have made them unfit for the lowest patrolman's job.

In charge of headquarters during the Stark inquisition was Deputy Chief of Police Frank Tappen, a burly, curly-haired, 250-lb. Republican "boss" in Oyster Bay. Off duty Deputy Chief Tappen runs a furniture store, collects antiques, has a reputation for being hardboiled. Martin Wilson Littleton Jr., assistant district attorney, a Republican friend of Tappen's, took the witness stand to tell this story:

"Deputy Chief Tappen came over to us. He was mopping his brow and looking very hot. He said: 'That [Stark] is the toughest -- -- -- I ever saw. I put one foot on his belly and one on his throat and rocked back and forth and it didn't faze him.' "

Held in $15,500 bail on charge of being an accessory to second-degree murder and violation of duty, Deputy Chief Tappen hotly denied the statement. Said he : "I hardly call that friendship."

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