A 19-year-old Indianapolis youth was identified in Superior Court, Room 2, yesterday as a member of a nation-wide extortion ring which preyed on homosexuals while using forged police credentials to blackmail their victims. Appearing before Judge Wilbur I. Grant for a hearing on his for ha- Scurlock petition Scurlock beas corpus to avoid extradition to New York was Rex A. Scurlock, 2117 North Leland Street.

The ring’s operation was disclosed earlier this year with the arrests of many persons, including a Chicago policeman alleged to have provided phony police credentials to the ac| cused extortionists. YESTERDAY WAS the first time a local person has been publicly connected with the operation. Scurlock, under indictment in New York specifically for second-degree assault, had filed the petition, claiming he was not the man sought. County Attorney James A. Buck, however, produced two New York witnesses who identified Scurlock.

One was Francis (Red) Mullin, who is serving a 9-year term in a New York prison for impersonating a police officer. Mullin testified he knew Scurlock during 1965 and early 1966 in New York. “He was pursuing his profession just like I was,” Mullin declared. HANDED A GOLD money | clip by Buck, Mullin told the court Scurlock had given it to him early last year. “He told me he took it from a man in his mid-60s,” Mullin testified.

Scurlock is alleged to have assaulted a Rowland Vance, taking from him : a money clip, clothing, checks and cash. While Scurlock’s young wife sobbed at the sight of Mullin and New York undercover detective John J. Moscato, the detective also pointed to Scurlock, explaining: “He was involved with a | bunch of young hustlers who would assault and rob homo-‘ sexuals, then take their identification and sell it to another group who would pose as policemen and go back and blackmail the homosexual.” MOSCATO SAID he posed as a member of the group, acting as a drug pusher. Scurlock’s attorney, Kenneth C. Kern, who was nearly two and one-half hours late for the hearing and drew a verbal rebuke from the court, argued that identification of his client had been inconclusive.