Friends of Ours

Pastoral Life For NYPD Whistleblower

Frank Serpico, the storied cop who launched a campaign with fellow officer David Durk in the 1970s to expose wide-spread NYPD corruption, is living in the upstate woods these days as reported by Larry McShane for the Daily News:  "'I would like to be known for having been a human being, but for having taken that responsibility very seriously,' he reflects."  When the 77-year-old dies he doesn't want an obituary but just "a stone with a hole in it that will gather water, so the birds could come and drink."

Frank Serpico's fellow crusader David Durk died last month as reported by Robert D. McFadden for The New York Times: 

An Amherst College graduate who studied law at Columbia University, Mr. Durk joined the Police Department in 1963. He imagined a life of public service, as he put it rosily years later, to help "an old lady walk the streets safely" and "storekeeper make a living without keeping a shotgun under his cash register."  But what he found was a culture of corruption: of officers and superiors taking payoffs from gamblers, drug dealers, merchants and mobsters for protection and information, like the names of informers they wanted to kill; of officers stealing and dealing drugs, riding shotgun for pushers and intimidating witnesses.

Real cops turn in dirty cops.  Get it?  Got it?  Good!

Further reading that may be of interest:

NYPD Corruption:  Same As It Ever Was?

NYPD Corruption: Same As It Ever Was?

In 1970 the Knapp Commission investigated wide-spread corruption in the New York Police Department, and Michael Armstrong takes a look back at its work in his new book They Wished They Were Honest as reported by Sam Roberts for The New York Times: 

Mr. Armstrong, a criminal lawyer, was counsel to the Knapp Commission and is now the chairman of the city’s Commission to Combat Police Corruption.  At the time of the Knapp Commission, he recalls, Sydney C. Cooper, a police commander, was quoted as saying that the police brass "used to sit around discussing corruption with all the enthusiasm of a bunch of little old ladies talking about venereal disease."

The $64,000 question, of course, is whether rampant corruption still pervades law enforcement in the Big Apple.

One of the red flags of possible police corruption to investigators at the time of the Knapp Commission were the the numerous gay bars -- many presumably mobbed-up -- which openly flouted the time for last call.  Armstrong writes:

They [the investigators] had been focusing their attention on the West Village gay bars whose flamboyant after-hours activities seemingly should have attracted the attention of the area’s police.  The area was one of warehouses and garages, and nestled among them were a number of after-hours bars and homosexual prostitution hangouts, operating loudly and openly well past legal closing time.

More than forty years later the mob still is in a few gay bars according to some sources, and other gay establishments seemingly are engaged in naughty behavior all to which the NYPD, the NYDA and other law enforcement agencies apparently are turning a blind eye.

Of course, such claims should not be startling.  The Mafia once enjoyed near-monopoly control over gay bars in New York City, and even as late as 1985 reputed capo Matthew "Matty the Horse" Ianniello was convicted with several associates for skimming profits out of several bars including the tranny bar Gilded Grape and the hustler bar Hay Market.

One former barback of a currently-operating downtown gay bar claims that the place is run by the mob, and although only nineteen years old at the time of his under-the-table employment allegedly was allowed to guzzle all the alcohol he could at a discounted $1 a drink.  A freelance writer who was working on an ultimately-killed story for a major online gay news site interviewed a bartender at that same establishment who reportedly acknowledged a "rumor" about Mafia control but was "too afraid" to ask about it.

And a former manager of a currently-operating uptown gay bar alleges that the establishment at which he worked – plus another one nearby – is run by "wise guys."  A bartender at that same uptown joint even once identified an alleged mobster who from time-to-time made an appearance, and although married with children the purported wise guy apparently has a little sugar in his tank and is known to sample the merchandise.

A number of gay establishments seemingly are acting as prohibited commercial sex venues under the cover of legitimate operations.   These businesses have articles of incorporation with the New York Secretary of State representing that they were formed only for lawful purposes, and yet their operations behind closed doors may belie this representation which arguably could constitute filing a false instrument in violation of Penal Law section 175.30.  Moreover, funneling proceeds generated from commercial sex venues through purportedly lawful corporations perhaps could be considered as money laundering in violation of Penal Law section 470.05 which prohibits, among other things, engaging in transactions designed to "conceal or disguise the nature . . . of the proceeds of criminal conduct."  Indeed, a case could be argued that such a business model if in fact true may amount to enterprise corruption under Penal Law 460 which is New York's version of the racketeering law.

The failure of law enforcement to act on gay bars which allegedly are Mafia-infiltrated or gay businesses which may be in violation of the law is seemingly inexplicable.

Frank Serpico, the NYPD detective who blew the whistle on police corruption which sparked the Knapp Commission, says the problem still persists as reported by WNYC:  "'In my time no, not every policeman was corrupt,' he said. 'But those that were corrupt were the ones that ran the show. And that's the way it works today.'"

Indeed, just last month, "three former detectives and a current one have filed lawsuits alleging that they were harassed for reporting corruption" within the NYPD as reported by New York Magazine.  These lawsuits "and interviews with several officers who have called Internal Affairs to report their colleagues, seem to provide ample evidence that the anti-snitching culture in the Police Department remains virulent" as reported by Joseph Goldstein for The New York Times.

Maybe it’s all the same as it ever was.

Hero NYPD Cop Frank Serpico: An Update

Corey Kilgannon from The New York Times hooks up with the legendary Frank Serpico in upstate New York:

This is the man whose long and loud complaining about widespread corruption in the New York Police Department made him a pariah on the force. The patrolman shot in the face during a 1971 drug bust while screaming for backup from his fellow officers, who then failed to immediately call for an ambulance. The undaunted whistle-blower whose testimony was the centerpiece of the Knapp Commission hearings, which sparked the biggest shakeup in the history of the department. * * * Now, all these years later, Mr. Serpico is working on his own version of the harrowing adventures chronicled by Peter Mass's biography, which sold more than three million copies.

NYPD Corruption

The New York Post reports that "more than 100 of New York's Finest were investigated last year for allegedly associating with criminals -- from boozing with mobsters to pulling off robberies with gang members to even carrying on affairs with lowlife drug dealers":

The figure represents about half of the serious Internal Affairs corruption investigations, according to sources. "It is one of the big problems the Police Department faces," said a source familiar with the NYPD's hard-charging efforts to root out wrongdoers. * * * The issue has been of increasing concern as the force has gotten younger and starting salaries have fallen. Annual starting pay dipped to $25,100 a few years ago and has only recently been restored to $40,000. "You pay a low salary, and people come from neighborhoods where they grew up with people who didn't make the move" in the right direction, one source said. * * * Accusations of cops consorting with criminals are extraordinarily difficult to lodge because investigators must prove an individual was aware of someone's unsavory background. And many cops wind up being warned to avoid their errant relations. But the NYPD trial rooms are littered with cases in which cops are convicted of hanging out with "known criminals," coupled with other departmental violations. The NYPD declined to comment, but sources said the problem of cops associating with criminals was "a thread running through a lot of administrative cases."

The New York Post expose has shaken "public confidence in the New York Police Department":

Corruption allegations are nothing new to the NYPD. * * * However, the city has not seen system-wide corruption since the plain-clothes officer Frank Serpico testified to an investigating commission in 1971 that his fellow officers were taking millions of dollars in pay-offs from criminals.

Thomas Reppetto, a former Chicago detective and co-author of NYPD: A City and Its Police, contends that the current spate of corruption cases within the NYPD is not systematic:

"There will always be cases, no matter what. The question is: is it wide-spread? Is it condoned?" he said. "There were periods in the history of New York when it was systematic. Now we see individuals, but we do not have a widespread, highly organised, condoned system of corruption. We do have individuals or small groups of officers and it tends to be mixed up in the drug trade, where there is a great deal of money. That is the problem at the moment."

However, Richard Aborn, the president of the nonprofitmaking organization Citizens Crime Commission of New York City, said "that any corruption undermined public confidence and cooperation with the police":

"I do not have the sense there is more corruption now than there has been, but there is no such thing as an acceptable level of corruption," he said. "It sends out a very unsettling message to the community that the very people they turn to for help cannot be trusted. That can be very, very destabilizing."

Meanwhile, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, the NYPD cops who were sentenced yesterday to life in prison following their convictions for eight murders on behalf of Luchese crime family underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, get to keep their city pensions:

Both men have been drawing tax-free disability pensions from the city since they left the Police Department, according to city records. Mr. Caracappa, who retired in 1992 as a first-grade detective, receives $5,313 a month. Mr. Eppolito, who retired in 1990 as a second-grade detective, is paid $3,896 a month. Because they retired before they were accused of crimes, their pensions will continue. Moreover, the pensions are not subject to seizure for payment of the fines, said Joseph A. Bondy, the lawyer for Mr. Caracappa. * * * Under state law, public pensions are treated as property held in trust for the employees, and periodic efforts to make their forfeiture a penalty for corrupt public employees have failed.  The Daily News reported last year that 450 corrupt former officials, judges and police officers were receiving pensions.