A New York police officer is under investigation for allegedly engaging in a traffic ticket fixing operation and associating with a suspected Guyana-born drug dealer.
According to a New York Daily News report, NYPD Officer Jose Ramos owned a barbershop in Mott Haven, Bronx, and it was being managed by Guyanese Lee King, a suspected drug dealer, better known by his street name ‘Marco Mack’.
The NYPD Internal Affairs (IA) started investigating Ramos in 2009, after he was suspected of the unauthorized use of a parking permit “and something far less mundane – associating with a suspected drug dealer in the Bronx”.
According to the IA report, the newspaper said, Mack had a had a second job managing a Mott Haven barbershop owned by Ramos.
According to the report, Mack drove Ramos’s 2007 Nissan Murano, used his NYPD parking placard and kept a .380 handgun in a shop safe that may have also held drugs.
Mack has a felony burglary conviction on his record. In another case, he was arrested for drug possession and eventually pleaded to unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, the Daily News said.
The IA, according to the newspaper, listened in on Ramos’s telephone conversations and was able to discover that he “fixed” traffic tickets, sometimes for favours, sometimes for free.
Ramos is on “modified duty” the newspaper said and likely to be indicted.