Pubdate: Wed, 23 Jan 2008
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2008 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Al Baker
Note: Reporting was contributed by Ann Farmer, Christine Hauser, 
William K. Rashbaum, Matthew Sweeney and Carolyn Wilder.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm (Corruption - United States)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?246 (Policing - United States)

DRUGS-FOR-INFORMATION SCANDAL SHAKES UP NEW YORK POLICE NARCOTICS FORCE

In the world of urban policing, few relationships are as fraught with 
peril as those between narcotics officers and confidential 
informants. These informants -- C.I.'s in police parlance -- are 
often small-time criminals who are paid or get criminal charges 
dropped in return for information about other, theoretically more 
dangerous criminals.

Now four police officers in Brooklyn are under arrest in a case that 
involves paying informants not with cash or leniency but with the 
very drugs they craved, taken from the dealers who were arrested 
after the informants pointed them out. Two of the officers were 
charged in an internal sting last week after another was caught on a 
department audio tape bragging about the practice in September, officials said.

Prosecutors have moved to dismiss more than 80 criminal cases because 
the officers caught in the scandal were considered critical to 
successful prosecutions, law enforcement officials said, and the 
office of the Brooklyn district attorney is analyzing about 100 more 
potentially tainted cases.

Three additional officers have been suspended without pay and 
stripped of their guns and badges; two others have been placed on 
modified assignment -- they lose their guns and badges but still 
receive paychecks -- and about a dozen more have been switched to 
desk duty. They will be barred from taking enforcement action, like 
making drug arrests, until the scope of the wrongdoing is determined, 
officials said.

Four high-level supervisors have been transferred, and a new 
commander -- Deputy Chief Joseph J. Reznick -- has been brought in to 
supervise the department's Narcotics Division.

The concept of using drugs to compensate confidential informants -- 
mainly people familiar with street culture and criminal habits -- is 
not new. Raymond J. Abruzzi, once chief of Brooklyn detectives, who 
retired in 1996, said it was illegal but commonplace 30 years ago, 
"mainly because the department did not have a lot of money to pay the 
informants."

But the continuing corruption investigation offers a striking example 
of officers who appeared to have gone too far to make arrests, in a 
way that is now aggressively condemned. One law enforcement official 
even called it "noble-cause corruption."

"What it looks like to me is that these guys took a shortcut and 
shortcuts will get you in trouble and shortcuts will get you in 
jail," Mr. Abruzzi said.

"For them to become, in essence, crack dealers, shame on them," Mr. 
Abruzzi said. "The question is: 'Were they lazy? Was it an accepted 
practice in the unit? And, if so, why would it become accepted?' 
Either way it is wrong; it is against the law and it is against our 
rules and no matter how you slice it, it is corruption."

The officers caught in the scandal are part of two 10-person 
"modules" or teams of officers assigned to the Brooklyn South 
narcotics bureau, which is staffed by 260 officers who work under the 
umbrella of the Police Department's 1,400-member Narcotics Division.

The arrests were first reported on Tuesday in The Daily News.

Several officials said it appeared to be a case of a handful of 
wayward officers in one command -- as opposed to systemic activity 
enmeshed in the culture of the department's antinarcotics efforts -- 
though others may be involved. One official said one or two more 
officers may ultimately face criminal charges and others might face suspension.

"Additional suspensions may occur as the investigation proceeds," 
said Paul J. Browne, the department's chief spokesman. He said there 
had been "some cooperation from officers assigned to Brooklyn South 
in the case," but he declined to elaborate.

At the same time, the case raises questions about supervision of 
narcotics officers. Two of those arrested -- Sgt. Michael Arenella, 
31, and Officer Jerry Bowens, 31 -- worked on the midnight shift. The 
lack of supervision for officers working in the middle of the night, 
who are often the least experienced in the department, has been in 
the past a chief reason that sloppy, even criminal behavior has taken hold.

The two others charged -- Detective Sean Johnstone, 34, and Officer 
Julio Alvarez, 30 -- worked in a unit that covered both days and 
nights, officials said.

In a statement, Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney, 
said, "I have full confidence in the ability and integrity of the 
Internal Affairs Bureau of the N.Y.P.D., and we are working closely with them."

The case began last year, when officials said Detective Johnstone and 
Officer Alvarez, who both joined the force in 2001, claimed to have 
recovered 17 plastic bags of cocaine, rather than the 28 bags they 
actually recovered from a drug suspect Sept. 13 in Brooklyn. A day 
later, Detective Johnstone, in a police vehicle, was overheard on a 
departmental tape recording bragging to another officer -- not 
Officer Alvarez -- about the practice of keeping drugs to give them 
to informants, officials said.

Investigators heard the tape later, and in December, Detective 
Johnstone and Officer Alvarez were each charged with official 
misconduct, falsifying business records and filing false documents. 
What happened to the 11 missing bags of drugs is not clear, officials said.

Officials said the man Detective Johnstone and Officer Alvarez 
arrested, Michael Pratt, was later an informant against them, telling 
internal investigators that the officers had taken more drugs from 
him than they claimed -- a fact that would, under normal 
circumstances, not be in his best interest to admit.

Peter E. Brill, a lawyer for the Detectives' Endowment Association 
who is representing Detective Johnstone, said that his client "avows 
his innocence and he will aggressively fight the charges against him."

A wider inquiry by the Police Department's Internal Affairs Bureau 
led to the arrests of Sergeant Arenella and Officer Bowens last week, 
officials said. It was not known if the sergeant and officer were the 
specific focuses of what is known as an integrity test, or if they 
were simply the only ones to fail.

According to officials and court papers, Sergeant Arenella, who 
joined the force in 1999, and Officer Bowens, who has been a police 
officer since 1995, took a portion of drugs and cash they recovered 
in November and provided it to a confidential informant as payback 
for pointing out the suspect, who was actually an undercover police officer.

Sergeant Arenella and Officer Bowens recovered 40 plastic bags of 
cocaine and $250, but later claimed to have recovered only 38 bags of 
the drugs and $210 in cash, giving the rest, enough for personal use, 
to the informant as payback, the officials said.

The police disclosed the arrests at 3:44 a.m. on Saturday, in an 
e-mail message to reporters.

Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly transferred Deputy Chief James O'Neill, 
the commander of the department's narcotics operations, as well as 
Inspector James O'Connell, the commander of the Brooklyn South 
narcotics bureau. Two captains in that bureau, John Maldari and 
Joseph Terranova, were also transferred, officials said.

Officer Bowens's lawyer, Edward J. Mandery, said that by the 
officials' own accounts, his client was not shaking down drug dealers 
or robbing them for his own profit. "So, it is a situation where 
obviously it is unfortunate but it seems to me the intentions were to 
apprehend the bad guy, not line his pockets, not falsely arrest 
someone," he said. "This is a case where they are trying to stop the 
drug dealing and, according to the district attorney's office, went too far."

Andrew C. Quinn, a lawyer for Sergeant Arenella, said his client had 
engaged in no criminal wrongdoing.
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