A city cop reaped $115,000 in welfare, food stamps, health care and child care benefits - all while pounding the beat for the NYPD, police said yesterday. Officer Esther Cornielle, 37, claimed she was making $9,300 a year as a beautician so that she could stay on the dole while earning her $32,000 police salary, authorities said.

"It is an embarrassment to all the hard-working officers out there," said Capt. Patrick Desarlo of the NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau.

Cornielle, who was assigned to the 110th Precinct, near her Queens home, was arrested at 2:30 p.m. yesterday while on her way to work. She was suspended from the force.

Her neighbors in East Elmhurst said the single mother of four girls - a 7-year-old, 9-year-old twins and a 10-year-old - did not appear to have a lot of money.

Police said Cornielle, who has been getting welfare benefits since 1991, lied on a benefit recertification form she signed in January, saying she was making poverty wages as a beautician.

Since becoming a cop in March 2000, Cornielle got about $1,900 every month to cover her rent, food, child care and cash assistance, Desarlo said. But the bulk of the benefits - $72,000 - came from Medicaid, he said.

Police said they were tipped off in December by a woman who rented a room in Cornielle's apartment and reported unexpectedly getting checks from the city for baby-sitting the cop's children. Police said Cornielle forged the woman's signature on the checks and pocketed thousands of dollars.
NY Daily News 8/14/02

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