The NYPD slapped four officers from the troubled 81st Precinct in Brooklyn with internal disciplinary charges for allegedly fudging crime statistics and misleading investigators, officials said.
Deputy Inspector Steven Mauriello, the former commanding officer of problem-plagued precinct, and three unnamed subordinates, including a sergeant and two patrol officers were not charged criminally and only face lesser penalties such as a pay cut or loss of vacation days, officials said.
Mauriello, who was transferred to a transit division over the summer, was charged with purposely tampering with grand larceny and car theft reports while misleading detectives from Internal Affairs.
The sergeant was accused of failing to verify that two officers had filed a robbery complaint and those same two officers were charged with not following the order to file the complaint.
They were not removed from duty.
A second sergeant was expected to hit with internal charges next week, officials said.
The probe was launched in the wake of accusation by Officer Adrian Schoolcraft that officers were pressured by higher-ups to falsify records to improve the 81st Precinct’s crime statistics.
Schoolcraft, who went public with his accusations, had made hundreds of hours of secret tape recordings that he said are proof that supervisors ordered and condoned falsification of crime reports.
He claims he was forcibly taken to the psychiatric wing of a hospital last year as punishment for coming forward about the misconduct.
That episode was caught on tape and his superiors can be heard giving foul-mouthed orders to haul him off in handcuffs.
Schoolcraft, 35, has a $50 million lawsuit pending against the city.
He claims he was bounced from unit to unit when he tried to blow the whistle, and stripped of his gun and badge by a police department doctor whom he spoke to about his job-related anxiety.
Schoolcraft’s attorney Jon Norinsberg called the charges a good first step.
“But this is only a very small part of the problem that’s out there,” he said. “As far as we’re concerned, this is a citywide problem and until the larger problem is addressed, and there is an investigation into all the precincts in New York, this is a very small step.”
The NYPD has said the Schoolcraft allegations are an isolated incident.
The union that represents Mauriello did not immediately respond to a phone message.
with AP