A former chief fire marshal for the FDNY has allegedly been granted a generous plea agreement for a DWI charge he incurred in December. Louis Garcia, who the Daily News calls a "legendary FDNY figure" before his retirement in 2008, allegedly ran a stop sign near his home in Whitestone and crashed his Mercedes into an unmarked police car.

"Is that a city car?" Garcia said at the time, according to court documents. "Is there any way out of this?" The two officers in the vehicle missed a week of work for their injuries, and now their attorney says the Queens DA has worked out a deal that would allow Garcia to plead to a lesser charge.

As the ticket-fixing scandal continues to show that some people are more equal than others in the eyes of the law, other prominent public servants have also sought to dilute or dodge their indiscretions under the banner of professional courtesy. Former Bronx Assistant DA Jennifer Troiano is facing DWI charges after she was involved in an accident on the Major Deegan Expressway last summer. On the scene, she identified herself as an Assistant DA, and records show that she was also stopped in 2009 under suspicion of DWI but was released without being charged.