Shame of the NYPD
ore than a year after news first broke of the NYPD corruption scandal, Acting US Attorney Joon Kim on Tuesday unveiled fresh criminal charges in the case — and the investigation’s not done yet.
This particular scheme had the added fillip of making a mockery of New York’s highly touted gun-control laws.
Corruption was “pervasive” at the NYPD’s gun-licensing division, according to Kim. Among those charged with taking payoffs for processing and expediting pistol permits was the division’s No. 2.
Starting in 2013, the alleged scam got gun licenses for pretty much anyone willing to pay a bribe. No background checks, no questions as to whether the applicant actually needed a gun, no follow-up on major red flags.
One license, Kim said, went to a man who’d been the subject of a domestic-violence complaint involving a death threat. As a result of the probe, more than 100 gun licenses have been yanked.
Businessman Alex “Shaya” Lichtenstein recently was sentenced to 32 months in prison for bribing cops as an “expediter” of gun licenses. The new charges allege that several cops tried to cash in and corner the expediter market for themselves by forcing Lichtenstein to deal with them. A former Brooklyn prosecutor also allegedly set himself up in the expediting business.
All are said to have lavished cops in the licencing bureau with cash, jewelry, paid vacations and visits to strip clubs.
Commissioner James O’Neill says the licensing bureau has been swept clean and permit approval limited to the commanding and executive officers.
All well and good. But the overall investigation is still open, with the largest corner of the scandal unresolved.
Kim’s office (then under Preet Bharara) filed charges last year against four officers in connection with alleged bribes and favors involving businessmen Jeremiah Reichberg and Jona Rechnitz, who were also big donors to Mayor de Blasio.
Yet the names of other top brass have surfaced as involved with Reichberg and Rechnitz, including ex-Chief of Department Philip Banks, once deemed a top contender to succeed then-Commissioner Bill Bratton.
How much more is coming?