City to toss 24 cases tied to fired narc

Two dozen more drug convictions stemming from arrests made by ousted NYPD Detective Joseph Franco will be tossed due to the disgraced former officer’s unreliability, the city’s Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan said Monday.

Brennan will ask a Manhattan judge to vacate and dismiss the convictions of 24 people who pleaded guilty to felony crimes they did not commit after their arrests by Franco (inset). Four others who pleaded guilty to lesser charges or had their cases tossed after attending mandatory programs will have their arrest records sealed, Brennan’s spokeswoman added.

All told, 18 felony indictments and six misdemeanor complaints will be dismissed.

Franco, who was assigned to the Manhattan South Narcotics Division, has been indicted in Manhattan on 26 counts of perjury, official misconduct and other related charges for lying on the stand and fabricating drug sales that landed multiple innocent New Yorkers in state prison. The NYPD fired him following a disciplinary trial in May 2020.

The 48-year-old Franco worked throughout the city as a plainclothes narcotics cop from 2009 until his arrest in 2019. He produced arrests for every district attorney in the five boroughs and testified at countless trials as a police witness.

Brennan’s office isn’t the only one conducting an audit of Franco’s law enforcement career. Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. has had 40 cases connected to Franco dismissed and is in the process of vacating an estimated 100 more, said Vance spokesman Danny Frost.

Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez moved to dismiss 90 drug convictions that relied on Franco as a crucial witness in April. Bronx DA Darcel Clark will soon move to dismiss 150 cases, a spokeswoman for her office said.

Franco’s attorney, Howard Tanner, did not immediately respond to a Daily News request for comment.