Prosecutors in the Bronx and Manhattan and several City Hall staffers were among a group of public employees who wriggled out of summonses with the help of ticket-fixing cops. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
@WiL
The alleged fine-dodgers flashed Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association cards or official IDs to avoid traffic fines in more than a dozen instances over the past five years, according to sworn testimonials sent to The News by angry cops.
Others called on pals in the NYPD to help quash tickets after they were already issued, the cops said.
The letters accuse seven Bronx assistant district attorneys and three Manhattan prosecutors of “official misconduct†for “getting the same perk [Bronx District Attorney\] Robert Johnson is now outrageously prosecuting 15 good men for.â€
They also outline a scheme in which two City Hall staffers allegedly passed summons information to cops assigned to the building, who then got union delegates to quash the summonses. The letters accuse the Bronx prosecutors by name, but The News could not immediately corroborate the accusations against them.
The cops also provided summons numbers for several cases they say were “taken care of.â€
“We hope that this information will be shared with us so that we can investigate,†said Steven Reed, spokesman for the Bronx district attorney’s office.
City Hall spokesman Stu Loeser said, “We have no tolerance for this kind of thing, but we also have no way of knowing if this allegation was simply made up.â€
A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney would only note that her office had not received the documents sent to The News.
In the documents, each officer admitted to either letting the employees go free after pulling them over — or being involved in schemes to fix their summonses after the fact. None are facing criminal charges.
This information will continue to be made public as a result of the Bronx DA’s witchhunt,†one letter said.
Each of the seven letterwriters provided their badge and tax ID number to prove they are cops — all of which checked out.
They promised to send another batch of letters — with names of more summons-dodgers — if the Bronx district attorney’s office and City Hall didn’t “own up to corruption in their own halls.â€
The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment.
The bombshell letters were delivered to The News on Friday, the same day Bronx prosecutors charged 16 cops with a litany of crimes ranging from grand larceny to forgery.
More than 500 angry cops surrounded the Bronx courthouse and jammed the halls to protest the indictments, spewing venom at passing prosecutors and calling the ticket-fixing a courtesy, not a crime.
After the cops’ arraignment, PBA President Patrick Lynch said department higherups sanctioned ticket-fixing and their approval of such courtesies would be proven.
Taking care of your family, taking care of your friends, is not a crime, said Lynch, whose union is 23,000 strong. To take a courtesy and turn it into a crime is wrong.
One letter writer said he was spilling to The News in order to right this wrong.
We feel this is an opportunity to get the truth out, he wrote.
