New York, NY – As many as 400 cops could face disciplinary charges for fixing tickets in a widening corruption scandal, The Post has learned.
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Two NYPD lawyers were recently transferred from the department’s legal bureau to its advocate’s office, which handles departmental trials against officers, and told to expect hundreds of cases, according to a source in the unit.
“This is huge,” said the source. “That’s a lot of cops all in one shot. I’ve never heard of something like that before, this many police officers charged in one period.”
“It was a systemic thing,” said another source familiar with the probe.
The department will charge cops internally in all 12 Bronx precincts — and possibly other boroughs — for allegedly helping out friends and family by “losing” paperwork and missing court dates. In turn, parking tickets, moving violations and quality-of-life summonses would be dismissed in court or vanish before ever getting near a judge.
Officers found guilty in department trials could get fired, lose benefits, or be reprimanded or warned.
Those who tampered with documents might face criminal charges of obstruction or filing a false instrument, while cops who took money could be hit with felonies such as bribery.
The NYPD lawyers plan to go after union delegates and fixers most aggressively, some of whom some could face criminal charges as well, the source said. Officers who simply sought favors from the fixers would likely get lighter punishment.
that means that brownies gotcha tickets, or false cell phone tickets, will be much easier to give! they know their tickets will stay and they’ll go to court where the cop ALWAYS wins. he just has to tell the court he saw you on your cell even though you didn’t even have a cell in the car at that time! I see this as necessary, however I do see the one sidedness in correcting only the revenue botchers, rather than the real corruption, like fight victims being told that “we didn’t see the brawl, soo if you want to press charges, we’ll have to arrest you as well!” (where it is quite evident that only one is beat up and the other one has not a scratch.)
New York’s finest.
This is not one bad apple ruining the bush. It is a bush ruined.
The ethical and proper thing for the city to do, would be to aytomatically dismiss every summons these crooked cops ever issued.
Their integrity and “presumption of correctness” has now been undermined.
This is somewhat like the scandal in Nassau County where you can buy favor with a donation to an organization that is associated with the NCPD. Give a large donation and you get to carry NCPD ID, which is like a get out of jail free card. The story broke last week in a free community paper in Nassau Cty. If proven true the NYPD officers involved will have to face the music for their actions. If they are fired NYC will be short on officers with the current NYPD academy class postponed.
40 years ago, the Knapp Commission documented corruption in the New York City Police Department. It seems that very little has changed in four decades. Gevalt!