PI Newswire

As many as 100 raucous cops turned up at midnight at the Bronx DA’s Office, screaming their support for 15 fellow officers who were scheduled to surrender in the NYPD ticket-fixing scandal.

A 16th cop was arrested earlier last night.

By 1:30 a.m. today, all had turned themselves in.

Their brother officers loudly applauded them as they walked into the building. They also jeered Internal Affairs detectives, whose investigation led to the indictments.

“You p—–s,’’ shouted one cop at the IAB contingent.

One cop, José Ramos, was arrested at around 8 p.m. last night at his Washington Heights home, said his lawyer, John Sandleitner.

Ramos’ wife, Wanda Abreu, was also taken into custody.

The charges against them weren’t immediately clear.

Thirteen cops, one lieutenant and two sergeants face possible charges including obstruction, official misconduct, perjury and bribery.

“They’re anxious to get in there and prove their innocence,” one source said.

Prosecutors are expected to unseal indictments, totaling about 1,000 pages with nearly 1,500 criminal counts, against the officers and five civilians today at an arraignment before Criminal Court Judge Steven Barrett, a source said.

The DA’s Office released a statement to The Associated Press, stating that the indictments will include “allegations of police corruption covering a broad spectrum of crimes.”

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A former NYPD narcotics officer has blown a festering police misconduct scandal sky-high with testimony this week that police regularly planted drugs on innocent people to meet arrest quotas. The former narc, Stephen Anderson, was testifying as a cooperating witness in the trial of another officer after he was arrested for planting cocaine on four men in a bar in Queens.

In two days of testimony at the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, Anderson described how rules were routinely broken or ignored so that narcs could make their monthly arrest quotas. His testimony shone new and unflattering light on the department in a scandal that was originally cast as police not turning in all their drug evidence so they could give it to their snitches as rewards for services rendered. One police official at the time characterized it as “noble corruption,” done for a worthy cause.

But Anderson’s testimony painted a picture of much baser motivations than bending rules in order to get information on drug deals. Anderson alleged that police routinely used drugs they seized but failed to turn in to plant on totally innocent people, without regard to the consequences.

In one case, Anderson described buying three bags of cocaine at a Queens nightclub, then giving two of the bags to a fellow officer, who planted them on and arrested four innocent people.

In court, Justice Gustin Reichblach, who is hearing the case without a jury, pressed Anderson on what he and his comrades had done to innocent people. “What was your thought in terms of saving his career at the cost of those four people who had seemingly no involvement in the transaction?” he asked.

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NEW YORK — The New York Police Department will bring in cops from units outside Manhattan to handle security for Saturday’s Sept. 11 memorial, as well as planned demonstrations sparked by controversy over the Islamic community center, officials said.

Police will flood lower Manhattan for Saturday’s three hour-plus remembrance ceremony that begins around 8:45 a.m. Then at 3 p.m. cops will shift attention a few blocks uptown where demonstrators will be gathering to protest the Islamic center planned for 45-51 Park Place.

Several hundred protesters are expected to mass in an area centered on Barclay Street and West Broadway to decry what planners describe as a $100-million multicultural facility. Many 9/11 families are against the center because they say it is too close to Ground Zero.

Police officials said officers from outside Manhattan are being called in to ensure local borough commands are not depleted by the security demand.

It was a year ago that the FBI and NYPD ran a joint investigation that uncovered the abortive plot of terrorist Najibullah Zazi. The former Queens resident pleaded guilty earlier this year to concocting a plan to set off homemade bombs in the subway to coincide with last year’s Sept. 11 anniversary.

But for the moment things seem quiet on the counterterror front, according to police. “We have no information indicating any kind of terror attack,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said Thursday.

Police have deployed the heavily armed Hercules unit around major transit hubs and other key points in the city. Police are also present outside of Jewish and Islamic houses of worship, as is customary.

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A veteran NYPD cop has been accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a girl from the time she was 13, The Post has learned.

Police officer Georgios Mastrokostas was stripped of his badge Aug. 27 after the girl, now 17, told authorities about the relationship, the NYPD said.

“We are investigating the allegation internally,” said Deputy Inspector Kim Royster. “He was placed on modified duty.”

Mastrokostas, who joined the force in 2004, was recently transferred from the 70th Precinct in Kensington, Brooklyn, to the 32nd Precinct in Harlem due to another unspecified allegation, the NYPD said.

It’s unclear how the girl, from Flatbush, Brooklyn, first met Mastrokostas, who was assigned to patrol her neighborhood.

Calls to Mastrokostas’ home and his union were not returned.

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A Manhattan jury on Monday acquitted an NYPD housing cop of all charges after he was caught on tape beating a handcuffed Iraq war veteran.

Officer David London, 45, was cleared of assault charges and filing false police reports.

“I’d like to thank God and my family,” the father of three said after a verdict that reduced him to tears. The cop faced up to seven years in prison.

London’s alleged victim, Walter Harvin, 30, who served a tour in Iraq and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, was AWOL from the trial. His mother, Cora Page, testified in his place, telling jurors her unstable son vanished about a year after the July 2008 beating.

After court, the angry mother blasted London, the jury – and the justice system.

“That is not a cop – a cop doesn’t do that,” she said of the videotaped beating.

“Sgt. Harvin – he served his country, and that is the justice he got?” fumed Page, who compared the verdict to the Queens case of Sean Bell, the unarmed groom who was shot and killed by undercover cops in 2006. The cops were acquitted by a judge in that case.

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The Black Radio Network, whose “Minority News” program is broadcast on WWRL and WLIB in New York, sued New York City and its Police Department for denying the station press credentials because the station was converting to a Web-based format. And the network claims the city gives press passes to politically connected people who don’t need them – including Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes.

Network owners Jay and Diane Levy say the NYPD had approved their working press cards for more than 40 years, but denied their application in 2009 when they reported that the network “would be converting to a Web-based news [outlet], with photo and audio service.”

The Levys say in their federal complaint that the NYPD said it denied their application because “its rules allow working press cards to be issued only to those individuals who are full-time, news staff employees, whose routine duties require them to cross police and fire lines and are regularly involved in spot emergency news coverage.”

But the Levys say that “employees of large, recognized, or ‘established’ news organizations are issued press cards,” whether their duties require special access or not.

The Levys claim that Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes, WABC meteorologist Lee Goldberg and WCBS political correspondent Marcia Kramer were all given cards allowing them to cross police and fire lines, though none of them need access to emergency areas to write stories.

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An NYPD database culled from random police checks came under fire Wednesday as a civil-liberties group filed a lawsuit and two City Council members questioned the practice.

The New York Civil Liberties Union accused the New York Police Department of violating constitutional privacy protections and breaking state laws that require arrest and summons records be sealed unless there is a criminal conviction. The group asked that the suit be certified as a class action.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the database “has proven to be invaluable” in solving cases. He declined to comment on the legality of including people who weren’t convicted of a crime.

Since 2003, the police department has stopped nearly three million people and arrested or given summonses to 360,000 people, according to documents provided by the police department to the City Council. The lawsuit seeks to have records from the stops and arrests that didn’t lead to conviction expunged from the database.

Lead plaintiff Clive Lino, a 29-year-old East Harlem resident, said he began keeping records and sent complaints to city agencies every time he was stopped and frisked. He counted 13 stops between February 2008 and August 2009 and says he suspected he was targeted as a black man.

“I’m an honest citizen and I pay my taxes,” he said. “It’s happening more and more and I want it to stop.”

Of 149,753 people stopped by police between Jan. 1 and March 31 this year, 9% were whites, though whites comprise 44% of the city population.

City Council members Christine Quinn and Peter Vallone, spoke out Wednesday against keeping the information indefinitely in the database.

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A former police officer accused of knocking down a bike-riding demonstrator and lying about it told jurors Friday he was just trying to protect himself and never meant to misrepresent what happened in a clash caught on video.

Patrick Pogan said he’d told the cyclist, Christopher Long, to stop for a traffic summons as he pedaled through Times Square. But Long kept pedaling and lowered his shoulder as though preparing to hit him, Pogan said.

“I used my arms to get that bicycle away from me,” Pogan testified at his criminal trial on charges. “There was definitely a force coming at me that I had to stop.”

“I know it was extreme, but I took a larger impact,” he added.

It was the first time Pogan has publicly explained his version of the July 2008 encounter, which was captured on a video that drew millions of online views, spurred the city to pay Long $65,000 and prompted Pogan to resign the police job he had held for only 11 days before the confrontation. If convicted, he could face up to four years in prison.

He was charged after the video, shot by a Florida tourist, appeared on YouTube and contradicted his report of Long ramming him and knocking him over. Pogan said Friday he had simply gotten confused when making his initial report.

“I never intended to lie at any point,” he said, noting that he tumbled to the ground later while struggling with Long.

Pogan and Long crossed paths during Critical Mass, a freewheeling monthly pro-bicycling event that had long caused tensions between police and participants. Pogan was part of a group of rookie officers assigned to keep order and watch out for traffic violations as the cyclists passed through Times Square on July 25, 2008.

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A pillow fight might seem like harmless fun – but try telling that to the NYPD.

Cops on alert for unrest recently conducted surveillance of a giant pillow fight in Union Square, sources told the Daily News.

There were no arrests at the April 3 event – touted as hipster performance art attended by hundreds of people – and no indication beforehand that anything violent was brewing, sources said.

“The NYPD assigns both uniformed officers and plainclothes officers, from Intel [Intelligence Division] or otherwise, to make certain disruption associated with these and similar events in the past don’t get out of hand,” said Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, the NYPD’s top spokesman.

But police sources involved in the surveillance complained it was a waste of time. The pillow fight “was just about a bunch of high school kids goofing off,” one source said.

Kevin Bracken, the 23-year-old organizer who has irked cops by producing dozens of daffy public events without getting permits, said the attention paid to the pillow fight was over the top.

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The head of the New York Police Department’s detectives’ union says the NYPD has been towing its own unmarked cars and then paying detectives overtime to retrieve them from the pound.

Michael Palladino, president of the Detective’s Endowment Association, says that, over an 18 month span, the union has documented nearly 40 instances of detectives’ cars being towed while they were on the job.

Paul Browne, chief spokesman for the NYPD, said Monday that parking placards never allowed officers to park illegally in front of fire hydrants, bus stops, cross walks and on sidewalks.

The department has stepped up enforcement of illegal parking after Mayor Michael Bloomberg cut the number of placards issued.

Palladino says the practice has endangered stranded officers, the public and even those under arrest.

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At least 50 times since 2002, New York City police have swooped down on a modest house in Brooklyn in search of bad guys, only to find they have the wrong house and an increasingly frustrated retired couple , the New York Daily News reports.

The most recent visit was 7:30 a.m. Tuesday.

No one — not the cops nor the homeowners, Walter Martin, 83, and his wife, Rose, 82 — can figure out why, the newspaper says.

It all started in 2002, five years after the Martins bought the Marine Park house, when they began getting junk mail, court documents and arrest warrants for a large number of strangers, the News says.

Then cops — from as far away as North Bronx and Staten Island — started banging on their door looking for murder and robbery suspects as often as three times a week.

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A&E PREMIERES NEW ORIGINAL REAL-LIFE SERIES “RUNAWAY SQUAD”

FORMER-NYPD DETECTIVE JOE MAZZILLI AND HIS TEAM TRACK AND RESCUE RUNAWAYS TO REUNITE THEM WITH THEIR FAMILIES

ONE HOUR PREMIERE MONDAY, APRIL 5 AT 10 PM ET/PT

NEW YORK, NY, March 9, 2010 – A&E kicks off the original real-life series “Runaway Squad,” following former NYPD detective Joe Mazzilli and his team of private investigators, who track, rescue and reunite runaways with their families. The seven episode series will feature a special one-hour premiere on Monday, April 5 at 10 PM ET/PT on A&E followed by back-to-back half-hour episodes each week.

“Joe Mazzilli is a true New York character and a real-life superhero,” said Robert Sharenow, Senior Vice President, Nonfiction and Alternative Programming, A&E. “The extraordinary passion and commitment that he and his team display on a daily basis is incredibly inspiring and something we believe our viewers will truly connect with.”

Each year in the US, more than 1.6 million youths run away from home. Although thousands of runaways are killed or die out in the streets, most overburdened police departments don’t have the resources to meet the parents’ pleas to find them. That’s where former NYPD detective Joe Mazzilli and his team step in. On an on-going, pro bono basis, this dedicated squad tracks and rescues runaways – often extracting them from dangerous situations – and brings them back to their families. With a combination of investigative techniques and connections, street smarts and dogged manhunt experience, the “Runaway Squad” works hard to find these young adults before it’s too late. Each search begins with the parents, as Mazzilli carefully evaluates them to be sure the squad is returning the runaway to a safe and loving home. Whether the runaway is in danger due to drugs, sexual assaults or prostitution, the team is under intense pressure to find these young adults as quickly as possible and mend the damaged emotional ties between the runaways and their loved ones.

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