Extending the courtesy of ticket-fixing to fellow officers, pepper-spraying peaceful protesters, and planting drugs on innocent suspects to meet arrest quotas are but three of the NYPD's less savory on-the-job exploits which have been put under the microscope via recent high-profile cases. But the NYTimes' Jim Dwyer points us in the direction of one person's smaller story of a particularly frivolous arrest which seems just as ridiculous as those bigger cases: a 21-year-old female student was arrested and held by NYPD for 36 hours for not carrying ID. And as Dwyer so simply puts it, once she finally reached a courtroom, "the judge proceeded to dismiss the ticket in less than a minute." more ›

When we first heard about several prominent former NY lawmakers still receiving their taxpayer-funded pensions, despite criminal convictions, we were shocked at how nonchalant and entitled everyone seemed about it. But yesterday, State Controller Thomas DiNapoli told the News that he plans to publicly push to put an end to these financial shenanigans. "We don't have anything now that's a deterrent. We need to do something to build in some kind of penalty to get people to think twice before they do some of those things," DiNapoli said a day-late and a dollar-short. more ›

Sometimes, doormen shake down taxi drivers. Other times, taxi drivers overcharge passengers. On some special occasions, taxi officials wish each other dead. The cycle of abuse goes on today, with a new report that the Taxi and Limousine Commission is investigating allegations that taxi dispatchers are tacitly forcing tips from cabbies in order to procure working vehicles. more ›

The City Councilman accused of fraud, extortion, money laundering, and doctoring a receipt so he was reimbursed $177 for a $7 bagel sandwich, pleaded not guilty yesterday. After getting hit with a litany of charges in a 65-page federal indictment [PDF], Councilman Larry Seabrook (D-Bronx) was released on a $500,000 personal recognizance bond. "We have no hesitation in saying that we don't perceive that a crime was committed," said his lawyer, who claimed reimbursement checks issued to the Councilman were legitimate expenses. "That's laundering? I question that." more ›

A Bronx cop faces a life sentence for using his status as a police officer to help his friend run a cocaine ring. Officer Juan Acosta is accused of aiding his longtime buddy Yorick Rafael Corneil-Perez in distributing drugs by stealing cash from a rival drug courier while pretending to be on police business, providing tips about which streets would be lightly patrolled by officers, and transporting what he believed to be 22 pounds of cocaine from Long Island to the Bronx. more ›

Explosive accusations are being leveled against two NYPD cops, one active and one retired, who allegedly participated in at least 100 robberies of drug dealers, netting more than 100 kilos of coke. The duo are part of a crew that's been named in federal indictments in Brooklyn. The Daily News reports that the cops would change the collar brass on their uniforms to disguise their precincts when they kidnapped drug dealers and took them to "remote areas," where they'd torture them to find out where they were hiding their cash and drugs, which the crew would later resell. Two defendants who worked with the unidentified officers "applied a pair of pliers to one victim's testicles, threatening to squeeze the pliers if the victim did not talk." U.S. Attorney Andrea Goldbarg last month promised additional charges and the arrest of the two cops, who, apparently, have not yet been taken into custody. more ›