Published: December 31, 2008 12:10 am      

COURTS: Suspended Falls police officer to stay behind bars while case proceeds

BUFFALO — Suspended Falls police officer Ryan Warme will start the New Year in exactly the same place he ended 2008.

Locked up in a cell at the Steuben County jail.

After an hour and a half of arguments and testimony and a half hour of deliberation, U.S. Magistrate Judge Hugh Scott denied a request by Warme’s defense attorney to have him released from custody into house arrest at his parents’ Grand Island home. The ruling was a victory for federal prosecutors who had argued Warme should remain behind bars while his case works its way through court.

“The court finds by clear and convincing proof that the defendant poses a risk of danger to the community,” Scott wrote in his decision, “and that no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure against the risk he poses to witnesses and the community.”

Warme will return to court Jan. 23 for a status conference on his case. It is possible that by that time, a federal grand jury that has been hearing testimony and reviewing evidence in the case may have returned an indictment against Warme.

If he is indicted, prosecutors have indicated that Warme will face a significant number of additional charges besides those in the criminal complaint that led to his arrest on Dec. 2.

The three-year veteran of the Falls police force currently faces charges that include cocaine trafficking, violating the civil rights of two women and using his police issued a firearm while committing those crimes. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and could face the death penalty for the civil rights violations, though a potential life in prison sentence is considered more likely, should he be convicted at a trial.

At the conclusion of the hearing Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Bruce told Scott, “I understand from Mr. Daniels this will be a trial case.”

In arguing that Warme should not be released from custody, Bruce told Scott that Daniels admitted in a court filing that Warme had sex with one victim and oral sex with another victim and the encounters “occurred while he was on duty as a Niagara Falls police officer.”

Daniels fired back by telling Scott that Warme doesn’t deny having sex with two women but that what happened wasn’t a crime, but consensual acts without violence or force.

Contact reporter Rick Pfeiffer at 282-2311, ext. 2252.