Brooklyn prosecutors want to overturn hundreds of convictions prosecuted with the help of corrupt cops

The Brooklyn Borough Attorney’s Office will overturn hundreds of convictions obtained based on testimony by corrupt police officers, including NYPD narcotics officers, who administered drugs to innocent suspects. Prosecutors appeared in court on Wednesday to seek parole in 47 counts of felonies and plan to visit the Brooklyn Criminal Court later this month to seek the overturning of an additional 331 misdemeanor convictions.

The cases relate to 13 NYPD officers convicted of crimes on duty. The vast majority of the convictions to be vacated were drug-related and involved illegal acts, including administering drugs to suspects or supplying narcotics to confidential informants. Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said Wednesday that although a review found no wrongdoing in the cases to be cleared, his prosecutors “have lost confidence” in the work of the depraved cops.

“These former police officers have been found to have committed serious misconduct directly related to their official job duties and call into question the integrity of any arrests they made,” Gonzalez said. “A thorough review by my Conviction Review Unit identified the instances where her testimony was essential to proving guilt, and I will now dismiss those convictions as I no longer have confidence in the integrity of the evidence supporting them.”

Cases related to the corrupt Brooklyn Drug Squad

Many of the dismissed cases, 134 in all, involved testimony from former NYPD narcotics officer Jerry Bowens, who is serving a 40-year sentence for murder after killing his girlfriend. In 2008, while assigned to the Brooklyn South Narcotics Division, he illegally stole crack from suspects and gave the drugs to a whistleblower in exchange for information. He shot his girlfriend and injured another person in 2009 while awaiting trial in the corruption case.

Bowens was one of four officers from the Brooklyn South Narcotics unit convicted in a massive corruption scandal. More than half of the cases in which a dismissal was envisaged involved testimonies from the four officers.

Another 14 cases were dropped because of her connection to Jason Arbeeny, a Brooklyn South narcotics officer convicted in 2007 of official misconduct and other drug-growing charges. Sean Johnstone, also a Brooklyn South narcotics officer, was convicted of conspiracy to pay whistleblowers with drugs, prompting Gonzalez to seek the dismissal of 40 cases based on his testimony.

Corrupt beliefs led to prison terms

Gonzalez and the Legal Aid Society found that many of the cases resulted in prison terms for those convicted.

“Those beliefs continue to hang around people and affect them in all sorts of ways,” Gonzalez said. “Had we known about these officers, we would never have brought these cases.”

Elizabeth Felber of the Legal Aid Society commended Gonzalez’s move to dismiss the cases, noting that many of those convicted are suffering from lingering effects of their criminal records. She also urged prosecutors to continue to conduct a policy review of previous convictions.

“While we welcome this decision, the defendants in these cases have been forced to endure hardships that should never have happened in the first place,” Felber said. “Some people have lost years of their lives serving prison sentences and many have suffered collateral damage including housing instability, job losses and reduced access to critical services, all because of the words of these corrupt police officers.”

“We call on DA Gonzalez and all other New York City District Attorneys to conduct these reviews continuously and with full transparency, not just in response to public pressure, but as their duty to ‘do justice.’ Anything else undermines public confidence in law enforcement and the criminal justice system.

The Brooklyn DA’s office spent 10 months reviewing hundreds of cases involving the disgraced cops and flagging for dismissal those in which the former cops’ testimonies were the main evidence presented to the court. Prosecutors said about 100 convictions were upheld based on other evidence corroborating the former officers’ statements.