Liar cops still OK’d to testify

Five on witness lists

Five NYPD cops found guilty of lying didn’t just keep their jobs — they were set to bear witness at criminal trials as recently as January, The Post has learned.

Letters to defense counsel from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office obtained by The Post detail strikes against at least 31 NYPD members.

Those red flags include everything from fudging attendance logs to palling around with known criminals and — in the case of five cops — being found guilty in internal hearings of lying.

“Police officers are supposed to be held to a higher standard,” copturned-lawyer Eric Sanders told The Post, explaining that getting caught in a lie can scuttle an officer’s entire career.

“You use it to attack their credibility, saying they’re not truthful . . . If you’ve done this [lied] before, why should we rely on what you are saying now?”

Detective Manuel Cordova, who worked narcotics in upper Manhattan as of May 2018, was slated to take the stand that January when Manhattan DA Cy Vance Jr.’s office alerted the case’s defense attorney to blots on Cordova’s record, one letter shows.

Since 2007, Cordova was named in a dozen lawsuits — the majority of which were settled or dismissed — and in 1999, he was found guilty in a departmental trial of charges including making false statements, the letter says.

Officer Joshua Rutta was found guilty in 2014 of falsely claiming that he lived in New York City or a designated suburb, a requirement to work for the department.

It was recommended that both Cordova and Rutta be canned, but they instead wound up on witness lists in 2018.

Other documented deceivers called to go under oath included Detective Carmelo Santana, Officer Michelle Marte — who was written up for falsely pleading ignorance to cops searching for her teenage nephew — and Officer Taras Kolosiej, who forfeited 10 vacation days in 2009 after being found guilty of insurance fraud in a departmental trial.

Kolosiej was supposed to be called to the stand in January. It was unclear if any of the five ever actually testified.

The letters were obtained just a month after insiders revealed prosecutors in all five boroughs were building a “naughty list” of cops whose checkered records could undermine their credibility in court.

Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch slammed prosecutors for “fishing for information that has nothing to do with the guilt or innocence of the defendant.”