Prometheus 6

In Brooklyn, Police Work Is Undone by Scandal
By CHRISTINE HAUSER

On a winter day in 2005, an undercover officer noticed two young men loitering on a street corner in Gravesend, Brooklyn. Something about their behavior caught his eye. He approached the men, gave one of them $19 and was handed two bags of crack cocaine by the other. After he left, other officers moved in and arrested them.

In the spring of 2007, an undercover officer bought a few grams of cocaine for $100 from a drug dealer in Bay Ridge. It was the first of a half-dozen deals, in which the officer spent more than $5,000 on drugs and slowly cultivated enough evidence for an arrest. The last transaction, on June 8, ended with the dealer in handcuffs.

From quick collars on street corners to the patient business of nurturing a relationship with the dealer in Bay Ridge — considered a big-time target — the Brooklyn South narcotics squad has scored a range of arrests over the years.

But now, after a corruption scandal involving four officers, the wheels of justice are grinding into reverse, undoing years of work by the police and prosecutors.

The Gravesend and Bay Ridge arrests are among the cases that have been affected by the scandal. The Brooklyn district attorney’s office has dismissed charges or vacated convictions in 183 cases because one or more of the four officers had played a significant role in them.

In addition, the city’s special prosecutor has thrown out five pending indictments against eight defendants.

“Your cases are only as good as your witnesses,” said the special prosecutor, Bridget G. Brennan.