Prosecutors Play Tapes of Threats in D.C. Taxi Bribe Probe

Federal prosecutors played a secretly recorded conversation in court Thursday that they say proves death threats were made against a government witness in a wide-ranging taxi bribery scam.

Prosecutors played the tapes in hopes of persuading a federal judge to keep the suspect jailed. Yitbarek Syume is charged with giving more than $300,000 to the chairman of the D.C. Taxi Commission in exchange for taxi licenses. Syume, 51, has been held at the D.C. jail since his arrest last week on federal bribery charges. Thirty-eight other men were indicted in the scheme. All the others taken into custody have been released on personal recognizance.

The government thinks Syume is too dangerous to release before trial.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson did not rule on prosecutors' request, saying she had not heard enough evidence by the end of the three-hour hearing. She continued the proceeding until Friday afternoon to give the government time to find and play tapes of Syume allegedly making other threatening statements.

Syume's attorney, Thomas Abbenante, said that his client is not a danger and that he should be released on home detention.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Crabb played a secretly recorded meeting among Syume, an undercover FBI agent and an undercover informant. The informant was D.C. Taxi Commission Chairman Leon J. Swain Jr., who played a key undercover role accepting bribe payments during the two-year investigation.

The meeting occurred the day after authorities arrested a top staffer to a D.C. Council member last month on bribery charges. At the meeting in a Southeast Washington parking lot, the men discussed a Washington Post story that identified a different undercover informant. That informant, Abdulaziz Kamus, wore a recording device while giving the council staffer $1,500 in bribes, The Post reported.

It is difficult to hear what Syume says on the tapes. But he is clearly irked by Kamus's actions. At one point, he says he is going to ensure that Kamus will be "permanently eliminated."

Swain can be heard more clearly. He is playing the role of a government official worried about being targeted by federal agents. "What the [expletive] happened?" he asked Syume at the beginning of the recording.