Cops allowed a troubled Bronx prosecutor to spend the night in a cozy, police-only recreation lounge instead of a jail cell after her August drunken driving arrest. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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Jennifer Troiano, 34, relaxed on a comfy couch, watched TV and told jokes to cops in the Bronx Central Booking police lounge while awaiting her arraignment, sources said.
“Instead of being put in a cell, she got treated like a queen,” said one source who witnessed the special treatment. “It was outrageous.”
Troiano spent more than five hours in the lounge, while other prisoners waited in crammed cells in the same building, sources said. She bragged to cops about how much she drank at a colleague’s going away party the night before – and blamed her drunken wreck on another driver, a second source said.
“That guy came out of nowhere!” Troiano hollered while holding court on the couch, according to the source.
Troiano was arrested on her way home to Yonkers on Aug. 26 after getting into a three-car crash on the Major Deegan Expressway. After her night in the lounge, Troiano was ushered into a nearly empty courtroom and arraigned before any other cases were called, sources said. A judge released her without setting bail.
Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne, the NYPD’s top spokesman, said Troiano’s separation from other prisoners was a necessity.
“When a prisoner may be at risk from other prisoners, he or she is separated from them,” Browne said.
Browne also said Troiano was in a room behind the courtroom without access to a television. Sources told the Daily News she was in a room behind that one, which has a TV.
Troiano had twice skirted trouble behind the wheel before her arrest, sources said. One of the incidents ended with a DWI charge being voided after a December 2009 Christmas party with Bronx prosecutors, the sources said.
The allegations of more special treatment for Troiano are an embarrassment for the Bronx DA’s office, which is wrapping up an investigation into an NYPD ticket-fixing scandal, sources said.
Troiano is slated to go on trial this summer on the DWI charge. Several colleagues who attended the August bash are expected to testify against her.
DN