Caught in ‘traffic’
NYPD agent’s scam
An NYPD traffic agent illegally used his position with the department to steer customers to his police-supply shop while he was supposed to be doing grunt work like writing parking tickets, officials said Wednesday.
Wilfredo Vega Jr.’s wrongdoing during 2014 and 2015 came to light in part through an Internal Affairs Bureau investigation tied to a federal NYPD corruption probe, sources said.
In a deal with the city Conflicts of Interest Board, Vega, 54, admitted repeatedly exploiting his official position so he could sell $32,000-plus worth of gear to traffic-agent recruits, use flashing lights and a siren to drive the wrong way on one-way streets, scam free gas and avoid paying nearly $9,000 in tolls.
He also copped to routinely working at his store — Juniors Police Equipment on East 21st Street in Manhattan — and conducting personal business while on the clock.
Vega came under scrutiny when he was found to have repeatedly visited the NYPD’s firearms License Division — which has been rocked by bribery allega- tions — between 4 and 5 a.m., sources said.
Vega was close with top NYPD brass including then-Commissioner Bill Bratton, Deputy Commissioner John Miller and chief spokesman Stephen Davis, sources said.
Few cops knew that Vega had been hired as a trafficenforcement agent in September 2011, sources said.
But a source in traffic enforcement described Vega as “a traffic-enforcement agent in title only.”
When Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara turned up the heat on the NYPD, however, “Junior became expendable,” another source said.
Records show Vega made more than $200,000 in less than five years as a traffic agent, but his deal with the Conflicts of Interest Board says he quit that job in February 2016 and his license to sell guns was suspended by the NYPD.
His $75,000 fine was reduced to just $5,000 when he cried poverty, officials said.
Vega couldn’t be reached, and his wife said he no longer lived with her in their Staten Island apartment.
Vega’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, said Vega had fully documented his financial straits, adding: “You can’t get blood from a stone.”