Metro

Ex-Bronx cop pleads not guilty in green card scam

This disgraced NYPD cop’s reputation has gone from bad to worse.

Ex-Bronx officer Jose Del Valle — already on federal probation for trying to buy 10 kilos of cocaine — pleaded not guilty in Manhattan today to charges that he scammed a pair of pals out of $6,000 by promising to get them green cards.

Del Valle, 32, had recently completed his five-year prison stint on the Rhode Island-based coke conviction and was working as an attendant at an Uptown parking garage in the fall of 2010 when he allegedly swindled his two co-workers, prosecutors said.

The two victims were from Ecuador. Del Valle told the pair that he had a contact who worked “in immigration,” prosecutors said, and that he could get them labor certifications and green cards if they paid him $3,000 each upfront.

The two pals did — then waited and waited. Eventually the garage closed, Del Valle stopped taking their calls, and the two went to the DA’s office, prosecutors said.

Assistant district attorney Jon Gross cited Del Valle’s federal probation status in

successfully asking Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Ronald Zweibel to set $25,000 cash bail.

Del Valle was assigned to the 42nd precinct and had his service firearm on him when the feds and NYPD internal affairs busted him in his gold Mercedes SUV in Warwick, R.I. in 2004.

The then cop — who was assigned to the 42nd Precinct — had just negotiated to buy 10 kilos of coke for resale back home, officials said at the time.

Del Valle had been turning his life around, his lawyer indicated in arguing that Del Valle be released without bail. The ex-cop had “A very good job” as a network administrator and was about to start classes at NYU, said the lawyer, Gary Cutler.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office gets more than a thousand complaints a year from immigrants who believe they have been scammed by fraudsters offering green cards and other immigration help, said DA Cyrus Vance, Jr., who urged anyone affected by such scams to call the DA’s Immigrant Affairs Program Hotline at 212-335-3600 regardless of immigration status.