The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office wants to drop over 400 criminal convictions associated with 13 corrupt NYPD officers.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said he found no misconduct in the cases, but his prosecutors “no longer have trust” in the officers, who were convicted of crimes ranging from lying to drug planting to accepting bribes.
Gonzalez’s office described the decision as the sixth-largest mass dismissal conviction in U.S. history.
Prosecutors are scheduled to appear in Brooklyn Supreme Court on Wednesday afternoon to request dismissals in 47 felony cases and will do the same in 331 minor issues later this month in Brooklyn Criminal Court.
“These former police officers were found to have committed serious misconduct that directly relates to their official job duties, calling into question the integrity of every arrest they have made,” Gonzalez said.
“A thorough review by my Conviction Review Unit identified those cases in which their testimony was essential to proving guilt, and I will now move to dismiss those convictions as I no longer have confidence in the integrity of the evidence that underpinned them,” Gonzales added.
The majority of the dismissals, 134 in all, came from cases established by Jerry Bowens, a former narcotics officer serving a 40-year jail sentence for killing, shooting his estranged fiancée, and injuring her companion.
Bowens was indicted a year before the incident on allegations of stealing crack from narcotics suspects and passing it on to informants.
Prosecutors also request that 60 cases involving Eddie Martins, one of two detectives suspected of raping a former Brooklyn woman, Anna Chambers, in the back of a police vehicle in 2018.
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