NY daily news September 25th 2011

City cops indicted in the Bronx ticket-fixing scandal rejected plea deals, opting to fight for their acquittals - and their pensions, sources said Saturday.

Bronx prosecutors and attorneys for some of the 17 officers engaged in lengthy negotiations before the offers were turned down, the sources told the Daily News.

The accused cops were offered misdemeanor plea deals, but chose trials after learning the guilty pleas came without guarantees of collecting their city pensions, one source said Saturday.

NYPD members convicted of a felony are fired and lose their pension, while those found guilty of a misdemeanor would retain some wiggle room but still risk pension loss. Felony charges are expected in the case.

Word of the possible plea deals leaked one day after a Bronx grand jury indicted the 17 officers on charges ranging from bribery to perjury to official misconduct.

More than 500 cops were tied to the NYPD's biggest scandal in two decades as it stretched from the streets of the Bronx to the offices of Police Headquarters.

The indicted officers were expected to surrender and make their initial court appearances this week. One officer said he expects a sea of blue in the courtrooms to offer support for their colleagues at the arraignments.

The cop also said morale was low as officers - brought down by wiretaps and the testimony of their peers - braced for their arrests.

The probe started two years ago with a tip about a single officer in the Bronx.

The News reported that grand jury members were disgusted by the amount of evidence supporting prosecutors' claims of corruption.

While the investigation focused on the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association and its leadership, sources indicated the wrongdoing went higher than street cops.

But, the sources said, questioning that seemed to implicate police brass was routinely steered in another direction by police Internal Affairs investigators and by prosecutors before the grand jury.

"Someone would testify they were told to handle a summons by so-and-so, but [prosecutors] weren't interested," one source said.

Another source said that NYPD Internal Affairs investigators took a similar approach - although he expected a few higher officials to be served up as sacrificial lambs.

"You'll see a couple of supervisors get into trouble," the source said. "That way, they can't say it was just about the cops and the PBA.

"But it is. There's no way this was ever going to the top."

The Bronx DA and police did not immediately respond to a request for comment on targets of the probe.

One sergeant said the list of high-profile New Yorkers who had tickets quashed - including one well-known religious figure - would "show the hypocrisy of this investigation."

Charges likely for even more NYPD officers
NY Daily News September 27th 2011

A grand jury reconvened Tuesday to vote on possible ticket-fixing charges against cops - after handing up indictments for more serious corruption charges on Friday, sources said.

Twelve people, most of them cops, already have been indicted on charges of ripping off a drug dealer, covering up arrests, leaking secret information about the investigation and other crimes, sources told the Daily News.

The grand jury voted on all the indictments last week, and The News reported over the weekend that 17 cops had been indicted. But in fact prosecutors decided to call jurors back to vote again on possible misconduct, records-tampering and other charges against 10 members of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, the sources said.

At least six cops and about six civilians already have been indicted, sources said, but the charges will not be made official until all the voting is complete.

The second batch of cops could each be hit with dozens of charges. Prosecutors "aren't pulling any punches," said one source with knowledge of the case.

"Because of the level of secrecy, only a very select number of people knew they would call them back [to vote] this week," the source said. "I've never seen [the Bronx district attorney] keep a lid on anything this tight before. It's an incredibly sensitive case."

The grand jury may not complete its work until the end of the year, sources said, and arrests for the indicted cops could still be weeks to months away.

"That's disgusting," said one anxious cop. "They are destroying people. Just get it over with."

The scandal has touched more then 500 cops, many of whom will face departmental charges. Some already have been disciplined internally.

The two-year investigation by the NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau uncovered rampant ticket-fixing among cops with the help of union delegates.

More serious crimes, stemming from at least one cop's relationship with a drug dealer, also were revealed, sources said.