NYPD Cop's Lies Sent 2 People To Prison, DA Says

NEW YORK — A Manhattan narcotics detective's lies wrongly put three New Yorkers in handcuffs and sent two of them behind bars, prosecutors alleged Wednesday.

NYPD Det. Joseph Franco faces perjury, official misconduct and offering a false instrument charges in connection with false testimony that led to the unlawful arrests of three people who eventually pleaded guilty, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office said.

Video footage contradicted Franco's account of each case, court papers say, but that didn't stop two of the defendants from starting prison sentences before evidence of his lies was discovered. DA Cyrus Vance Jr. moved to have their convictions vacated when his office's probe started, the DA's office said.

"As alleged in the indictment, this detective lied to judges, prosecutors, and his own colleagues in the NYPD about crimes that never happened, and three New Yorkers wrongfully lost their liberty as a result," Vance, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Franco, a 19-year NYPD veteran, pleaded not guilty to the charges on Wednesday, the DA's office said. His lawyer did not immediately return a request for comment.

The alleged false arrests happened at or near public housing buildings on the Lower East Side from February 2017 to April 2018 while Franco was a plainclothes detective in the NYPD's Narcotics Borough Manhattan South, according to court papers.

In the earliest case, prosecutors say Franco accused a man of selling drugs to another man in a Delancey Street building's lobby. But video showed the man enter the building, head upstairs and exit in less than a minute, while Franco walked past the building after the man entered, court papers say.

In another case, a woman was arrested outside a Madison Street building in June 2017 because Franco claimed she sold drugs to a man in the building's vestibule who then resold them to an undercover cop, according to prosecutors. Video captured the pair going into the lobby but recorded no drug sale in the vestibule, prosecutors say.

In a similar April 2018 arrest, prosecutors say Franco claimed he saw a man give cocaine to a woman near a Gouverneur Street building who then sold it to an undercover officer. But video in the case only showed the woman holding the door for the man as she was leaving and he was entering, according to court papers.

Franco gave his false accounts under oath to a grand jury in all three cases and documented them in police papers that went into official case files, prosecutors allege.

A judge released Franco on his own recognizance Wednesday, the DA's office said. The NYPD said he has been suspended without pay.

"Our NYPD officers swear an oath to uphold the law, and meet the highest ethical standards. Should an officer fail to meet those critical expectations, they must be held accountable," Police Commissioner James O'Neill said in a statement.