NEW YORK — On the asphalt of Sunset Park's 56th Street courts, in the summer of '93, Zack, Supreme and Bubba played the city game, basketball.
The ball bounced from one to another. From Detective Zaher "Zack" Zahrey, a neighborhood kid turned city cop. To William "Supreme" Rivera, who, authorities said, captained a renegade gang that robbed drug dealers and killed a guard in a 1992 armored car robbery. To Sidney "Bubba" Quick, whose crack habit imperiled every purse in Brooklyn.
Basketball provided an escape from their different and deadly worlds. But it was only temporary. This would be the last summer they shared the same court.
In March 1994:
* Supreme was murdered in a local disco.
* Zack, a decorated undercover narcotics officer, was tagged as a corrupt cop.
* And Bubba, behind bars for the fifth time since his 15th birthday, would cut a deal to become the key witness against Zack.
That month, barely a year after Zahrey received a detective's gold shield, an intoxicated tipster told the police Internal Affairs Bureau that Zack's ties to Supreme and Bubba transcended the basketball court.
"I was starting to hear word on the street that there were questions being asked about me," Zahrey said later. "But I didn't have anything to worry about, because I didn't do anything."
Internal Affairs Sgt. Robert Boyce turned up zero on Zahrey until five months later, when he visited Bubba Quick in jail. The persistent, violent felon was approaching his 30th birthday and a likely life sentence.
The sergeant kept returning to Quick, interviewing him three times, pressing for dirt on Zahrey. Boyce focused on the October 1993 murder of a Sunset Park drug dealer, J.R. Guadalupe.
In a March 1995 meeting at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Boyce promised Bubba "a very, very, very sweet deal" if he could implicate the policeman from the playground in Guadalupe's death.
"If you give me Zack," Boyce promised, "I'll drive you home."
Yes, Quick recalled. Zahrey was there when Guadalupe was killed.
There was little physical evidence. There were questions about Quick's credibility. Still, the case against Zahrey moved forward, from Internal Affairs to the Brooklyn district attorney to the U.S. Attorney's office.
It would take more than three years--including six months behind bars--for Zahrey to clear his name. His nightmare ended when a federal jury--after deliberating just five minutes--exonerated him.
"This prosecution was brought just for the sake of bringing it, to make the public think the authorities are doing something about police corruption," charged Zahrey's attorney, Joel Rudin.
"Detective Zahrey was a human sacrifice on the altar of public opinion."
*
Even on the court, Quick and Zahrey were opposites. At 225 pounds, Bubba had the burly body of a power forward--a dreadlocked, gun-toting banger. He ran with Rivera's gang, the Supreme Crew.
Zack was a lithe 6-foot-2, with a thin mustache and a badge. The 33-year-old son of Palestinian immigrants joined the department on July 8, 1985, earning his detective's shield in just seven years.
His court-honed walk, talk and attitude translated into law enforcement success. Working dangerous assignments in Brooklyn's toughest neighborhoods--Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brownsville--he made 131 undercover drug buys in one 15-month period.
"A leader among his peers," his supervisor, Lt. Robert Napolitano, called him in a June 1993 review. "This undercover officer exemplifies the undercover officer."
Just a month before, Zahrey and Quick--a high school dropout, an on-and-off junkie who played ball between purse-snatchings--met for the first time at the 56th Street courts.
They were introduced by Supreme Rivera, a Brooklyn playground hoops legend and Zahrey's former classmate at Fort Hamilton High School.
Zahrey and Rivera had long been friends. They started a failed construction business together, and played on the 84th Precinct basketball team when Supreme was an auxiliary cop.
Zahrey insists his relationship with Rivera cooled after he joined the Brooklyn North narcotics squad in 1991--coincidentally, around the time the Supreme Crew started getting busy in Brooklyn.
In March 1992, authorities said, the gang pulled off a $186,000 armored-car robbery, killing a 71-year-old guard.
The crew's specialty, however, was ripping off drug dealers for their stash and their cash. Their reign ended March 10, 1994, when Rivera was shot 14 times inside a Brooklyn disco--with a gun lifted from a cop.
*
Sgt. Robert Boyce, an 11-year NYPD veteran with 70 department citations, was relatively new at Internal Affairs when he met Zahrey that night. Both men were checking into Rivera's murder.
The NYPD, stunned by the revelations of corruption, was determined to root out rogue cops. Internal Affairs was upgraded, given more manpower and money. Boyce was part of the new regime.
