Drug Suspect Turns Tables on NYPD With Videotape
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 13, 2009
Filed at 1:40 p.m. ET
NEW YORK (AP) -- When undercover detectives busted Jose and Maximo Colon last year for selling cocaine at a seedy club in Queens, there was a glaring problem: The brothers hadn't done anything wrong.
But proclaiming innocence wasn't going to be good enough. The Dominican immigrants needed proof.
''I sat in the jail and thought ... how could I prove this? What could I do?'' Jose, 24, recalled in Spanish during a recent interview.
As he glanced around a holding cell, the answer came to him: Security cameras. Since then, a vindicating video from the club's cameras has spared the brothers a possible prison term, resulted in two officers' arrest and become the basis for a multimillion-dollar lawsuit.
The officers, who are due back in court June 26, have pleaded not guilty, and New York Police Departmental Justice have downplayed their case.
But the drug corruption case isn't alone.
On May 13, another NYPD officer was arrested for plotting to invade a Manhattan apartment where he hoped to steal $900,000 in drug money. In another pending case, prosecutors in Brooklyn say officers were caught in a 2007 sting using seized drugs to reward a snitch for information. And in the Bronx, prosecutors have charged a detective with lying about a drug bust captured on a surveillance tape that contradicts her story.
Elsewhere, Philadelphia prosecutors dismissed more than a dozen drug and gun charges against a man last month when a narcotics officer was accused of making up information on search warrants.
The revelations in New York have triggered internal affairs inquiries, transfers of commanders and reviews of dozens of other arrests involving the accused officers. Many drug defendants' cases have been tossed out. Others have won favorable plea deals.
The misconduct ''strikes at the very heart of our system of justice and erodes public confidence in our courts,'' said Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson.
Story here: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/06/13/us/AP-US-Vindicated-by-Video.html?pagewanted=1
James Morton
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Toronto, Ontario
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3 comments:
Bogus busts are a problem anytime law enforcement "competes" for the vast amounts of money Governments throw at the "war on drugs."
These 2 guys got lucky - hundreds of other not-so-lucky people just as innocent, rot in prison.
Years back, I saw an officer caught making up critical evidence at a criminal trial (criminal negligence causing death). It too was a video he didn't know about. It was the difference between a conviction and not.
Another aspect that troubles me- Judges found sentencing young people in Pennsylvania, to time in prisons they own shares of. Please don't let them bring this industry here. It's not at all that Liberals don't care about victims. We tend to care about all people equally. It leads to a more just society. Your title says it all, to me, about the CPC vision for Canada. They refuse to acknowledge facts or evidence when debating their crime bills. LJK
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