What kind of cop curses a deputy from another state and suggests he rip off his badge and throw it in the garbage for politely telling reckless police officers to slow it down?

That would be Jerry Speziale, the cocksure sheriff of Passaic County, N.J., a 46-year-old former juvenile-delinquent-turned-drug-war-hero who says Brad Pitt will be playing him in the coming movie about his life.

"I have no regrets," Speziale said Friday of his increasingly infamous, tape-recorded lambasting of Augusta County Deputy Michael Roane, who stopped a New Jersey police convoy speeding north on Interstate 81 last month.

Here's a whiff of Speziale's character from a summary of his "true-life" book, "Without a Badge: Undercover in the World's Deadliest Crime Organization."

From the start, the man Bernard Kerik [former police commissioner of New York] called "a hurricane" was a different kind of cop. A former juvenile delinquent, Jerry Speziale was a loose cannon whose antics got him into the crack dens and shooting galleries of New York's meanest streets and onto an elite DEA narcotics task force charged with taking down South America's powerful Cali drug cartel. Under the tutelage of [a] smooth-talking confidential informant, jeans-and-tee-shirt Jerry was transformed into Armani-clad Geraldo Bartone, the world's top drug trafficker. As Geraldo, he did things he had never dreamed of -- piloting planes, captaining cocaine-filled yachts, and meeting the most powerful kingpins in the brutal drug trade.

Antoine Fuqua, director of the dirty-cop thriller "Training Day," is lined up to make the movie of Speziale's story, according to an entertainment news report.

Are you starting to get a bead on this guy's ego? In Jersey, he's known for his gelled hair and full-dress uniform, complete with star-studded epaulettes.

The explosive issue of whether immigration detainees are being abused in the nation's prisons has flared up at the Passaic County Jail. Sheriff Jerry Speziale ejected federal investigators from the jail last month, accusing them of arrogance and incompetence, his spokesman said Tuesday.

Which is one of the reasons this highly decorated officer won more than 80 percent of the vote during his recent re-election. He's a wildly successful fundraiser and a muscular Jersey politician.

"Throughout his distinguished career, Jerry Speziale has put pride and respect for the uniform he wears and what it symbolizes, in the forefront."

"Only in Virginia" were convoy members stopped, he complained. In all the other states, he said, New Jersey officers and medics got "waved to, high signs, clapped for" because of their post-Katrina rescue work.

He cited a "whole pattern" of Virginia law enforcement playing hardball with Northern officers heading to and returning from the New Orleans relief effort.

What's worse, Speziale said, when he complained to the Virginia State Police about the convoy being stopped, someone passed along his home phone number (obtained via caller ID) to Deputy Roane.

"My civil rights have been violated," Speziale said. "I'm one of the [top] wiretap experts in the nation . . . . Don't think I haven't gotten legal representation."

Benjamin believes Speziale's attempted bullying of Roane is indicative of someone who "believes he is above the law. That's a very dangerous attitude. . . . The problem is when these guys band together.

"I'm appalled anyone would think these guys should not be pulled over," Benjamin said. "They're lawbreakers making excuses for their behavior. . . . I'm proud of our guy."

Speziale added that once the controversy lurched into public view, the Virginia police ratcheted up the reported speeds of the convoy to 80, 90 and 95 mph and added reports that motorists were being run off onto the shoulders.

"I don't think the newspapers have accurately reported" the situation, Speziale said. The coverage has been "totally one-sided based on the accounts of one deputy."

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