$600K Settlement for NYPD Officer Who Made Quota Tapes

An NYPD officer who claimed he was handcuffed and hauled off to a psych ward after he blew the whistle on supervisors faking crime statistics to make the stats look better reached a $600,000 settlement with the city on Tuesday.

It was Halloween night in 2009 when Adrian Schoolcraft said his fellow officers burst into his Queens home, declared him an emotionally disturbed person and brought him to a psychiatric facility.

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The officer, who worked in Brooklyn, had made hundreds of hours of secret tapes while on duty that chronicled everything from roll calls to locker room chatter to bosses yelling at him. He also claimed supervisors forged crime statistics to make the stats look better than they were.

Among other things, Schoolcraft alleged that officers were being told to hand out more summonses and make more arrests while others were downgrading crimes on purpose to make their precinct's numbers appear better. Schoolcraft claimed that officers who didn't were told they would be transferred or given undesirable schedules.

In October 2009, officers from the department's emergency service unit went with a police chief to Schoolcraft's home in Queens and forced him into an ambulance, he alleged. Schoolcraft was suspended from the force after his involuntary hospital stay and went into self-exile in upstate New York as his lawyer filed a $50 million civil rights lawsuit against the city.

On Tuesday, he reached a settlement with New York City and several former superiors. The settlement, which awards him $600,000, also includes back pay and benefits beginning in December 2009. The case had been set to go to trial in October.

"We are pleased that we were able to reach a just and fair resolution of this dispute with Adrian Schoolcraft," Nick Paolucci, a spokesman for the city's Corporation Counsel, said Tuesday. Paolucci said the settlement was not an admission of wrongdoing, but was "in the best interest of the city."
The only officer who was not represented by the city in the case, Insp. Steven Mauriello, said in a statement through his union Tuesday that he was disappointed with the settlement.

"Inspector Mauriello is disappointed this case settled," his union president Roy Richter said. "Although he was fully indemnified by the City, the Inspector was anticipating a trial decision that would provide a truthful account in a court of law."
Schoolcraft's attorney, Nathaniel Smith, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Associated Press writer Colleen Long contributed to this report.

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Man Shoots Self in Groin as Officers Approach: NYPD

A man accidentally shot himself in the groin early Saturday morning in Brooklyn as he was approached by officers, who believed he was urinating in the street, police said.

The 26-year-old man was standing with his back to traffic near Clarkson Avenue and East 93rd Street in Flatbush around 1:15 a.m., police said. The uniformed officers, who had been patrolling the area in an unmarked van, thought he was urinating in public and pulled their vehicle over.
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As the officers approached the man, they heard one gunshot erupt from where the man was standing. After the gunshot, the suspect allegedly ran towards East 94th Street, where he was apprehended.
The officers noticed that the man had accidentally shot himself in the groin while he was handling the firearm. Paramedics took the man to Kings County Hospital in stable condition.
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Officers located the gun under the rear passenger tire of a minivan. Police say the suspect threw the weapon there while he was running from them. He remains in custody and charges against him are pending.

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MAJOR K2 BUST IN THE BRONX UNCOVERS $10M IN DRUGS

NEW YORK (WABC) -- A major synthetic marijuana or K2 bust was made in the Bronx Wednesday evening.

Some two million packets were found with a value of approximately $10 million.

It happened on Poplar Street in the Bronx.

It was part of an undercover operation that was a continuation of a K2 bust from last week.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security were also involved in the investigation with the NYPD.

There have been no official arrests at this time.

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10 Indicted, 80 Locations Raided in Biggest Synthetic Pot Crackdown in New York City History: Officials

Federal agents and New York City authorities raided about 80 locations throughout the city Wednesday and arrested six people in what officials are calling the largest crackdown on the importation, distribution and sale of synthetic cannabinoids, commonly known as synthetic marijuana, in New York City history, law enforcement officials said.

A total of 10 people were named in a federal indictment on charges of participating in a scheme to illegally import at least 100 kilograms of illegal synthetic compounds into the U.S., enough to produce 260,000 retail packets, officials said. The seizure had a street value of about $30 million.

Of the 10 suspects, four are still being sought, officials say.

Several of the defendants are accused of importing illegal synthetic compounds in powdered form from China using commercial delivery services and transporting them to a processing facility in the Bronx where other defendants mixed the compounds with chemical solvents and then sprayed the mixture onto tea leaves, the indictment says.

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Co-conspirators then bundled the dried tea leaves into retail packets, labeled them and transported them to warehouses controlled by wholesale distributors, the indictment alleges.

Officials say the retail packets, which contained about 3 to 6 grams of synthetic marijuana, were sold to individual customers for $5 per packet. Packets were sold under names such as “AK-47, “Blue Caution,” “Green Giant,” “Geeked Up,” “Psycho” and other brands.

The investigation and raids were conducted by the DEA, the NYPD, Homeland Security Investigations and the NYC Sheriff’s office.

Those arrested Tuesday appeared in federal court in Manhattan later Wednesday. All are charged with conspiracy to distribute narcotics and face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors asked for a high bail amount for the defendants because of the money involved in the operation -- $30 million worth of products have been seized so far.

Two of the defendants were released on $200,000 bond; three others were released on $500,000 bond. One other suspect, Murad Kassim, remains detained on $1 million bond because he was a flight risk, the judge said. Kassim is also believed to have access to to a significant portion of the money in the scheme.

All defendants have been ordered to surrender travel documents and were given travel restrictions within the southern and eastern districts of New York. 

Officials say synthetic marijuana is popular among teenagers and young adults because it is inexpensive and sold at legitimate retail locations.

The U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy has reported the effects of synthetic marijuana use include anxiety, nausea, vomiting, rapid heart rate, tremors, seizures and suicidal thoughts.

Authorities said potency can vary from batch to batch so no one knows the precise effects. Synthetic marijuana is not detected by drug tests, so some users see it as a way to use without the risk of testing positive, according to officials.

“Despite sometimes being calls synthetic marijuana, this stuff is not marijuana. It can cause unpredictably severe and even lethal effects," Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said at a news briefing. "It is not natural and it is not harmless in any sense of the word. In fact, some experts believe that spice can be up to 100 times more potent than pot.”

“What is being sold every day in bodegas and convenience stores throughout the city to teenagers, to homeless people, to addicts is literally poison," Bharara added. "Toxic chemicals that bind to receptors in the central nervous system to frightening and sometimes even deadline effect.”

At the news briefing, officials said phone calls to U.S. poison centers for synthetic marijuana in the first four months of this year increased 225 percent compared with the same time period last year. In New York state, use of synthetic pot resulted in 2,300 emergency room visits in a one-month period this year, a ten-fold increase compared with the same time period last year. 

"This is a scourge on our society, affecting the most disadvantaged neighborhoods and our most challenged citizens. It affects teenagers in public housing, homeless in the city shelter system, and it’s quite literally flooding our streets," Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said in a statement. "This is marketed as synthetic marijuana, some call it K2. It is sold by the names of Galaxy, Diamond, Rush, and Matrix. But its real name is poison.”

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BREAKING: Carey Gabay, an aide to Governor Andrew Cuomo, has died after suffering a gunshot wound to the head during a pre-West Indian Day Parade shooting.

CROWN HEIGHTS, Brooklyn — Carey Gabay, an aide to Governor Andrew Cuomo, has died after suffering a gunshot wound to the head during a pre-West Indian Day Parade shooting.

Gabay, 43, was shot during the J'ouvert Festival on September 7. He was walking with his brother near the parade route just before 4 a.m., when shots rang out. He was rushed to Kings County Hospital where he remained for nine days before succumbing to his injuries.

Wednesday afternoon his family announced that Gabay was brain dead.
Gabay was a first deputy general counselor to Governor Cuomo. Cuomo called the Harvard-educated lawyer an "outstanding public servant." Gabay joined Cuomo's administration in 2011.

No arrests have been made at this time. Days after the shooting, police released a sketch of one of the suspects.

Police are looking for this man in connection to a shooting that fatally wounded an aide to Governor Cuomo. (DCPI)

The suspects are believed to be between 19 and 20. One of the suspects was wearing a white T-shirt, black pants and had a Jamaican flag around his neck.

Police later released a video of the two suspects.

A $12,500 reward for information about the attack has been posted by police.
The shooting was one of several violent incidents surrounding the parade. A 24-year-old man was fatally stabbed that same day, not far from the parade route.
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