The NYPD is investigating whether sympathetic precinct cops helped a Bronx prosecutor avoid a DWI arrest after she was pulled over near her courthouse, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said yesterday.
“That stop is under investigation . . . the allegation that she was stopped and let go and released,” Kelly said. “We’re checking databases, command logs.”
Jennifer Troiano’s boss, Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson, was “caught off guard” by reports of the alleged 2009 incident, said a law-enforcement source.
“This makes the office look bad; it makes all of us look bad,” the source said. “If I were her, I would quit now.”
Troiano was coming from a Dec. 9, 2009, holiday party for Bronx narcotics detectives the night she was pulled over, the source said.
The following August, she was busted for DWI after a three-car crash on the Major Deegan Expressway.
“Just so the record is accurate, there was absolutely no 2009 incident, DWI or otherwise, involving Ms. Troiano,” said her lawyer, Howard Weiswasser, adding that she’s had “zero” contact with Internal Affairs and expects to be cleared of her 2010 DWI charge.
The investigation of Troiano, 34, comes amid a wide-ranging probe into alleged ticket fixing by cops.
Bronx assistant district attorneys have compiled a list of police officers, detectives and sergeants whose alleged involvement with ticket fixing could possibly taint the prosecution of the criminals they arrested, police sources said.
Prosecutors don’t want to take the chance that a defense attorney could challenge the credibility of an officer and are offering misdemeanor plea bargains for felonies, the sources said.
The plea bargains are being offered before the district attorney’s office would have to notify the defense that the officer is part of the ticket-fixing probe during the discovery process, sources said.
“They let a guy go out on a street who was carrying gun, and they go after a cop who fixed a ticket for his sister-in-law,” one police officer said.
In a statement, a spokesman for the Bronx DA confirmed the list.
“We continue to comply with our obligation to turn over material that might bear on the credibility of our witnesses. On a case-by-case basis, we make judgments about whether or how that will impact on the prosecution,” said spokesman Steven Reed.