208
/
N Y PD A ND THE FINEST CONS
COP CONS In his book Undercover: Police Surveillance in America, the sociologist Gary Marx argued that police and state officials should be held to a higher standard than the average citizen: “The state should not teach bad morals lessons or engage in conduct that shocks the conscience.”5 Of course, police officers are not shielded from criminal opportunities and are not immune to greed and corruption. The New York City Police Department has a long list of allegations of corruption and brutality and cons and hustles of their own. In 2014, 106 former NYPD and New York City Fire Department employees were caught in one of the largest disability fraud cases in the city’s history. Since 1988, these officers conned the city out of $400 million in tax dollars by faking disabilities. Another cohort of cop con artists claimed to have suffered from “crippling emotional damage” after being first responders to the terrorist attacks in downtown Manhattan on September 11, 2001. It was later found out that many of the recipients of disability benefits had never even been to Ground Zero. Former NYPD officer Joseph Esposito—who advised officers and firefighters how to fake disabilities in exchange for a fee—was dubbed the ringleader of the fraud and eventually pled guilty to first-degree grand larceny and agreed to cooperate with the Manhattan district attorney.6 Even the “finest” and “bravest” citizens of New York are susceptible to crime if the right opportunity comes along. I asked Frank if he would volunteer any stories of police corruption. “So is there such a thing as a police con? Or a police hustle?” Frank smiled so big that I couldn’t see his eyes. “Of course.” He slouched in the bench and folded his arms, allowing some of the memories to come to him. “Well, the con is like, the con is the classic good guy/bad guy. That’s the con. That’s the biggest one. Basically, anytime you say anything to a police officer, it’s on the record. It’s never off the record. The biggest con that police officers have is . . . say you get pulled over . . . they call it a ‘spontaneous utterance.’ Spontaneous utterance is exactly what it sounds like . . . ”
N Y PD A ND THE FINEST CONS
\ 209
“On my part as the driver?” “It’s the person in the car. It’s the person stopped on the street. When they say something—unprovoked—that can harm them in a case. So basically—and this is everywhere—worldwide. Spontaneous utterance is something that can be used against you in a court of law. You know it’s a part of one’s Miranda rights.” “My understanding then is that without the Miranda, then it’s inadmissible in court.” Frank smiled. “Except for spontaneous utterance.” “So that’s a lot of gray area.” “Right! In other words, the biggest con that the police department has is getting you to say . . . getting you to admit guilt without specifically asking you a question. Like, ‘Did you do it?’ ” “To me that sounds like that has to happen before the arrest.” Frank straightened up in his seat. “No, no. If I have probable cause to arrest you, okay? Let’s give the example of shoplifting. Security caught you but didn’t catch you on camera. Security caught you stealing something. But you didn’t pass the register. You only put it in your bag. And now security stops you and says, ‘Yeah, he was going to pass the register.’ But you were right at the register, so it’s like an iffy thing. I mean, you put it in your bag and you were about to walk out. And you the thief are basically saying, ‘Hey, I was here to buy stuff, and I put it in my bag and I forgot to pay. And as soon as they stopped me, I was turning around to pay.’ So that’s like an iffy area because—” I interrupted, “Can that be counted as an utterance?” “Yes, but . . . but what you were saying is that you ‘weren’t stealing,’ you were ‘coming back to pay.’ Now . . . your nerves are all in a bunch. And you’re thinking, ‘I’m not going to say anything. I’m not going to fuck this up.’ So what I do is, I come in. I calm things down. I’m like, ‘Don’t worry about it. Shoplifting is fucking nothing. It’s stupid. You know.’ Frank motioned to a fake chair, ‘Just have a seat . . . Hey you want a cup of water? You want this?’ ” Frank stood and shifted around as if he were adjusting an imaginary police duty belt. “I wait. And then later on, I get to know you because I have to ask you questions.
210
/
N Y PD A ND THE FINEST CONS
And so then I’m like, ‘This is stupid. This guy last week got caught stealing. And you know? It’s the same charge whether you admit it or not. I told the guy last week’ . . . So I’m lying at this point . . . ‘It’s the same charge. And you know what the guy did? He told me the fucking truth. And you know what I did for him? I let him out. I fucking let him out because you know what? I was thinking, this guy is honest. He’s telling the truth.’ And then you go . . . ” He pointed at me. I laughed. “Ding! Light bulb!” “You’re thinking, ‘This guy is a good guy. He let this other guy go. I think I’m going to tell him that I did it.’ And then, boom! That’s it. You’re done. Because once you say that—now, I didn’t ask you a question. I didn’t ask you if you took the stuff.” “Oh, because otherwise an attorney needs to be there. Or a confession.” “Well, yeah. In other words, you need to be Mirandized. So that term spontaneous utterance is actually written in our manuals and in the law. Spontaneous utterance is admissible in court . . . before you get Mirandized. So that is a con. That is a con that police use all the time.” I smirked. “I get it. So the judge asks, ‘Officer did you ask him?’ ” “ ‘No.’ ” “ ‘No?’ ” “ ‘Nope.’ . . . I mean there’s dirty cops who lie, but you know . . . That’s not a con, that’s . . . ” I laughed. “Well, now you’re conning the judge.” “That’s just a lie.” Frank held up his hands submissively. “But there’s ways to get around it. Unless you are a seasoned criminal, I mean, seasoned criminals are not stupid. But the average criminal, is not, you know [that smart].” It was interesting to hear Frank’s quick admission that officers use the language of the law to their advantage, even if they are doing something unethical. The NYPD has had an image problem for decades. Many New Yorkers view members of the NYPD at best as dishonest and at worst as outright corrupt. For example, at the time of my interview with Frank, the NYPD was caught in the midst of a ticket-fixing
N Y PD A ND THE FINEST CONS
\ 211
scandal. It was found that there was a “systematic practice citywide”7 of making traffic tickets disappear for offending police officers and their friends. I decided to continue questioning Frank. “Do you know of situations where officers use their uniforms to their advantage? Use their badge to their advantage? Frank laughed and stomped his feet on the ground. “Yes! There’s officers who do things that are against our policies, very against our policies. One where you walk into—I’ve seen this before—one where you walk into, say, a restaurant. It’s kind of the unwritten rule that you will get a discount on your food.” “For free?” “Some . . . Now, that’s one thing. The problem is, is when they don’t. They don’t do—it’s called ‘do the right thing’—when people don’t do the right thing . . . If they charge them full price in a restaurant—I don’t know if that’s a con or a hustle—but they [the cops] will go back and hit the place.” Frank explained that if an officer feels slighted, he will send his underlings back to look for code violations, something most restaurants are incredibly afraid of, because the grading system can make or break a restaurant. Frank continued, “There’s a lieutenant at my job—and I don’t know how he gets away with this.” Frank leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “There was a hotel that opened up. Now this hotel was built from the ground up. Talk about millions and millions of dollars. This lieutenant walks up to the head of security—who he doesn’t realize is a retired police inspector—he walks up to him, and because the hotel opened up in what he considers to be his backyard, he walks up to him and says, ‘Hey, this is what I’m going to do for you. I’m going to make sure you don’t get summonses. I’m going to make sure that you’re taken care of. The whole parking thing. Inside, you’re not going to get visits.’ And so the head of security told me and said, ‘What the fuck is up with this guy? I could have taken his job.’ “So the cop says that to him, and the security guy says, ‘Do you have any idea who I am?’ He said, ‘No, why?’ He said, ‘I’m a retired
212
/
N Y PD A ND THE FINEST CONS
inspector . . . from such and such precinct.’ And the conversation ended there.” Frank laughed. “He was ‘this is who I am. Get the fuck out of my face.’ And that was the end of it. He left and he never spoke with him again. But . . . on the flip side of that, there are people who have been under his command, and this guy has been with a girlfriend . . . he’s married, so this is a girlfriend of his . . . drinking and eating. And they haven’t done the right thing [i.e., the restaurant has not offered him a discount]. So he’s on duty, drinking [alcohol] and eating, and he’s called his cops—those under him—to come in and find violations with the restaurant. In other words, he’s sitting down eating, and he says, ‘Hey, so let me get the bill.’ Here comes the bill. The bill’s the full boat. So he looks at it, pays it, puts it back. Five minutes later, his guys come in, shut down the place for like hours . . . and if you shut down the place for hours on a Saturday night, the place is losing a lot of money. He gave them all these summonses, violations, this, that, and the other.” I was shocked. “I mean, I feel like it’s a hustle if the message is out. Like, ‘That’s Officer so-and-so, make sure he gets a free meal. Or he’ll fuck with us.’” “Well, what this guy doesn’t understand is that he’s not liked by these owners. And this is why I don’t understand why he’s still employed. I don’t understand why he still has his job. And the only conclusion I can come to, is if and when he’s getting in trouble, he has what’s called a hook—someone higher up that he knows—which means what they’re doing is shutting down the phone calls.” I added, “He must be somebody’s favorite.” “Yeah. Somebody’s favorite who’s connected. And maybe he’s connected to the officer.” Frank sat for a moment, trying to think of other examples. I coached him along. “How about something where people got stuff on the side. But it’s advantageous to be an officer in order to do that stuff on the side.” Frank leaned back and spoke without hesitation. “The security business.”
N Y PD A ND THE FINEST CONS
\ 213
“But that’s sounds legit to me . . . unless you are talking about something off the books.” He scoffed. “Well there’s that too. Say you’re a cop. And you are a lieutenant or captain or whatever, and I work here.” Frank pointed toward the park, then in the general direction of some restaurants. “And I always go to lunch there, and right next to it is a building that has security. After some time working here, I make friends, I make connections, and I say, ‘Okay, well, I’m going to get a job there.’ And the hustle is finding a job off the books and also securing yourself a position in an agency when you retire.” He mentioned that the head of security at a major university was a retired deputy inspector. “Now you cannot tell me that he did not secure that job before he retired. He stuck his tentacles into that school and he got there. All the security underneath him are ex-NYPD officers. That’s a perfect example. That guy used his position in the NYPD to secure a position after he retired. That’s against NYPD regulations. But because he was deputy inspector, nobody looked into it. Nobody cared to look into it.” I asked, “And his qualifications are?” “Could he have legitimately retired from the NYPD?” Frank threw up his hands. “And could he have submitted his application to the school and received the position? Yeah . . . Did it happen like that? No.”
The Mud Truck As I was scribbling down some notes, Frank pushed my shoulder. “I got another one for you, another example. The mud truck.” “The what truck?” “The mud truck. It’s like a coffee and hot-chocolate truck. That was the favorite of a lieutenant I knew. That was his favorite place for coffee and what not. One day, the Department of Traffic gave him a summons and kept on giving him a summons. He secured his space where he was parking, and that’s the spot where the mud truck is. It was across the