It's more than ticket-fixing chatter investigators caught on their wiretaps: Cops are also heard talking trash about the people they're paid to protect, sources said.
The wiretap recordings at the heart of the probe captured conversations rife with racist and inflammatory remarks, sources told the Daily News.
"There's overtly racist language," said one source. "And it gets a lot worse than that."
The shocking language could cause the scandal to spiral far beyond the 17 cops already indicted, tainting cases of hundreds of officers caught on tape, legal experts said.
"If a Bronx jury hears a cop call someone a n----r or an animal, everything else they say goes out thewindow," said one veteran defenselawyer with a client who wasarrested by a cop implicated in the scandal.
The Bronx investigation - which began as a probe into a cop suspected of drug ties - quickly grew as officers were caught on tape discussing fixing tickets and other wrongdoing, prosecutors have alleged.
In the end, 17 cops - many of them union delegates - were indicted on Friday. Dozens of others will likely face departmental charges, sources said, and some already have.
The indicted officers could begin turning themselves in as early as today, sources said.
The cops are expected to be brought before Bronx Supreme Court Justice Steven Barrett this week on charges ranging from perjury and bribery to grand larceny and obstruction. "It's going to be the biggest parade of [arrested] cops we've seen in a long time," said a source close to the probe.
The tapes and transcripts of the officers swept up in the probe - even those not formally charged - lay bare the unseemly attitudes of some cops, sources said.
"That's how a lot of cops talk," said one source. "The difference here is, it's all on tape."
One example involves Officer Peter Hans, who was docked vacation days for getting tickets fixed. He was caught on the wire making disparaging remarks about the Bronx "ghettos" of Mott Haven and Melrose, where he was assigned, a source said.
The tapes could turn up in both the departmental hearings and the trials of the indicted officers. The recordings could later be dredged up in other cases involving any of the officers to question their credibility.
"I think the language will surprise and upset people," said a source who has heard some of the tapes.
Bronx juries have already acquitted two accused criminals arrested by cops embroiled in the scandal - including one man charged with attempted murder - in part because they did not believe the officers' testimony.
Prosecutors have worked feverishly to keep transcripts of the wiretapped calls from being made public, sources said.
In dozens of cases, they have cut deals with defendants to ensure the ticket-fixing issue didn't become a factor at trial, sources said.
In the case of Hans, prosecutors had a judge order that all transcripts of Hans' administrative testimony and profanity-laced calls be kept secret.
"You'll probably see that happen again and again," a lawyer connected to the case said.
kdeutsch@nydailynews.com
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Well, no one was surprised, but hopefully something actually will get done, and some fuckers go to prison for this.A grand jury reconvened Tuesday to vote on possible ticket-fixing charges against cops - after handing up indictments for more serious corruption charges on Friday, sources said.
Twelve people, most of them cops, already have been indicted on charges of ripping off a drug dealer, covering up arrests, leaking secret information about the investigation and other crimes, sources told the Daily News.
The grand jury voted on all the indictments last week, and The News reported over the weekend that 17 cops had been indicted. But in fact prosecutors decided to call jurors back to vote again on possible misconduct, records-tampering and other charges against 10 members of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, the sources said.
At least six cops and about six civilians already have been indicted, sources said, but the charges will not be made official until all the voting is complete.
The second batch of cops could each be hit with dozens of charges. Prosecutors "aren't pulling any punches," said one source with knowledge of the case.
"Because of the level of secrecy, only a very select number of people knew they would call them back [to vote] this week," the source said. "I've never seen [the Bronx district attorney] keep a lid on anything this tight before. It's an incredibly sensitive case."
The grand jury may not complete its work until the end of the year, sources said, and arrests for the indicted cops could still be weeks to months away.
"That's disgusting," said one anxious cop. "They are destroying people. Just get it over with."
The scandal has touched more then 500 cops, many of whom will face departmental charges. Some already have been disciplined internally.
The two-year investigation by the NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau uncovered rampant ticket-fixing among cops with the help of union delegates.
More serious crimes, stemming from at least one cop's relationship with a drug dealer, also were revealed, sources said.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crim ... z1ZMPOYU1I
Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin
