The New York Times-20080124-Drug Inquiry Widening In Brooklyn

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Drug Inquiry Widening In Brooklyn

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Three more New York City police officers have been suspended without pay and stripped of their guns and badges in a widening police corruption investigation that involves paying confidential informants with drugs, officials said on Wednesday.

The three officers, whose names were not released, were punished for failing to cooperate with Internal Affairs Bureau officers who have been investigating the corruption scandal within the 260-member Brooklyn South narcotics bureau for five months, the officials said.

Officials said the three officers are detectives who worked the midnight shift, from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., where corruption scandals historically take root.

Already, four officers assigned to two teams of the Brooklyn South narcotics bureau -- a sergeant, a detective and two police officers -- have been arrested in the case; two others have been placed on modified assignment, and about a dozen more have been switched to desk duty.

The three new suspensions brings to six the number of officers suspended in the continuing investigation, officials said.

The case came to light in September after one of the officers, Detective Sean Johnstone, 34, was overheard on a departmental tape recording bragging about turning in 17 plastic bags of cocaine, rather than the 28 bags that he and his partner had recovered from a drug suspect during a Sept. 13 arrest in Brooklyn, officials said.

In pursuing the case, investigators found a female informant of another officer who said she had had sex with that officer, though it is not believed to have been obtained with cash or drugs, one official said. The officer's lawyer said he had seen no charges against his client related to the sex allegation.

Because of problems arising from the scandal, prosecutors have moved to dismiss 80 criminal cases because the officers caught up in alleged wrongdoing were considered critical to successful prosecutions, law enforcement officials said. A hundred more potentially tainted cases are being analyzed, officials said.

In addition, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly has shaken up the department's drug fighting apparatus, as well as the Brooklyn South bureau, with personnel moves. He has transferred four high-level supervisors and put a new commander, Deputy Chief Joseph J. Reznick, in charge of the Narcotics Division.