Investigators probing a ticket-fixing scandal in the Bronx caught cops and union delegates talking about far more serious crimes, according to law-enforcement sources.
A wiretap captured conversations in which cops arranged to meet and pay for dates with hookers, sources said. Investigators are also looking into at least two cases where delegates tried to get cops out of arrests, one of them for drunk driving.
The revelations suggest the probe extends beyond ticket-fixing and could result in weightier indictments.
"In some cases guys would call their delegate to handle something more serious than a ticket," said one source with knowledge of the recorded calls. "They probably thought, 'If it's okay to ask for that favor, why not others?' But it's a giant leap from getting rid of tickets to getting rid of arrests."
The ongoing scandal has led IAB investigators down paths they never anticipated when the first wiretap went up in late 2008 or early 2009.
Investigators bugged the phone of Officer Jose Ramos, then a union delegate, after hearing he might have ties to a drug dealer, sources said. During that investigation, the officer, who is on modified duty, was heard on a wire asking a PBA delegate to fix a summons, sources said.
At first, police sources said, IAB thought the probe would be small - limited to the delegate who took the call and possibly two other cops.
"But it took," one source said, "and went in every direction."
On subsequent wiretaps, investigators heard shocking evidence of bribery, arrest-fixing and other crimes by fellow cops, sources said. The alleged payments for prostitutes were first reported by DNAinfo.com.
Investigators from the NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau and prosecutors in the Bronx district attorney's office are conducting separate probes into ticket-fixing, which could result in the arrests of up to 40 cops and departmental charges for at least 100 others.
Their findings have been startling, sources said:
More than two dozen cops fixed summonses in exchange for gifts, including tickets to Yankees games.
At least 15 cops intentionally "lost" tickets as a favor to fellow officers.
Dozens of cops asked union delegates to fix tickets for friends, relatives and "influential" figures - including unidentified city government officials.
A handful of cops tried to have arrests voided for themselves or relatives.
Prosecutors are presenting evidence to a grand jury which ends May 28, but it could be extended another 30 days.
The dual investigations have been met with fierce criticism by union officials and implicated officers, who say ticket-fixing has long been done as a professional courtesy.
"This current investigation into extending police courtesies by hardworking rank-and-file police officers is ludicrous," Edward Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, recently said in a public letter.
"If the truth were to be told, it is hard to call such practices acts of corruption when the culture of extending courtesies to members and their families within the NYPD has existed since the day the very first summons was ever written."
The ticket-fixing case will likely end up being the NYPD's biggest black eye since the "Dirty Thirty" scandal of the early '90s, where cops routinely made illegal arrests, perjured themselves, took bribes and sold drugs, experts said. Thirty cops pleaded guilty or were convicted in that case.
The current scandal, though, is a far cry from the crimes exposed in 1972 by the Knapp Commission, which shed light on pervasive police corruption and coverups, said Eli Silverman, professor emeritus at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
"A similarity is that prior corruption cases also started with isolated incidents, which investigators didn't know would explode the way they did," Silverman said. "You don't know where this one will lead."
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