Tainted ex-cop is backed by union in drug king case

The city’s detectives union vouched for the work of disgraced former NYPD Detective Louis Scarcella on Friday, blasting the reversal of a murder conviction against a notorious 1980s crack dealer due to the cop’s tactics.

Detectives’ Endowment Association President Paul DiGiacomo sent a letter Friday to Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, calling on the prosecutor to appeal a Wednesday decision by Judge Vincent Del Giudice to throw out the conviction of Sam “Baby Sam” Edmonson, whose drug trafficking crew filled the streets with millions of dollars worth of crack in the mid-1980s.

Scarcella was accused by a recanting witness of concocting testimony that the witness was at the scene of a murder Edmonson allegedly ordered of his own drug trafficking partner, Kenneth Rankin, in 1987. The judge believed the witness — and also said that Scarcella’s testimony at a hearing last year was “incredible.”

Edmonson was convicted in 1990 along with two associates of murdering Rankin, as well as another member of the organization, Willie Maye, in 1988. Edmonson was serving a 75-year sentence until the Wednesday ruling.

“The DEA stands by the work” of Scarcella,” the union said in the letter. “This ridiculous attempt now to smear our members’ names, reputations, and exonerate the horribly guilty is especially disturbing in this trying time in our city’s history.

“We are imploring you immediately to file an appeal of the recent decision... overturning the 1990 murder conviction,” DiGacomo wrote to Gonzalez.

The notorious crack dealer is still charged in that indictment, though it is not clear if the Brooklyn DA will appeal the judge’s ruling, retry the case, or let Edmonson walk free.

The conviction, which relied on scores of witnesses at trial who detailed the drug organization’s operation, fell apart after a key eyewitness to the Rankin murder, Keith Christmas, recanted, claiming Scarcella (photo) and his partner, Detective William Morris, urged him to make up his testimony. Christmas now claims he was not at the murder, contradicting his testimony at trial. Christmas says Scarcella and his partner gave him meals and even took him to the homes of two women for sex as they concocted the false story about Rankin’s murder.

Since 2013, more than a dozen cases Scarcella worked on have been thrown out by Brooklyn judges, leading to tens of millions in payouts in lawsuits to the wrongfully convicted by the city.

A spokesman for the Brooklyn DA’s Office said they are still reviewing the decision by Del Giudice.