As many as 400 New York City police officers may face disciplinary and possibly legal charges for allegedly taking bribes to help family and friends get out of parking and other traffic violations by simply losing the paperwork.'
The police department is apparently shocked by the spike in corruption and has been forced to reallocate lawyers into the department responsible for trials against police officers due to the rise in corruption cases. “This is huge. That’s a lot of cops all in one shot. I’ve never heard of something like that before, this many police officers charged in one period,” said one NYPD officer.The investigation into ongoing corruption began three years ago and is just now bearing fruit. Internal affairs detectives have spent months alone secretly recording police officers discussing ticket fixing. The officers are accused of discarding summons paperwork to prevent tickets from being sent out to adjudicating agencies. Often paperwork mysteriously vanished over night shifts before it could be processed, killing the ticket trail. In some cases documents were changed to reflect a different car license plate or driver’s license number. Often, officers would agree to simply not show up in court so speeding ticket violations would be dropped. Officers could face being fired, reprimanded or punished – some will face criminal charges for tampering with official documents.