MELVILLE, N.Y. — An NYPD officer faces life in prison after
he was arrested on charges he plotted to take more than 20 pounds of cocaine
from a Long Island warehouse to the Bronx as part of a drug ring, federal
officials said Friday.
Juan Acosta, 34, an officer in the 43rd Precinct in the
Bronx, was arrested Thursday and charged with being part of the drug
conspiracy, extortion and firearms offenses, according to an indictment
unsealed in federal court in Manhattan.
On November 12, Acosta escorted what he believed was cocaine
from the warehouse to the Bronx, said officials. An FBI spokesman wouldn’t
identify the location of the warehouse used as a rendezvous point.
In 2005, Acosta allegedly used an NYPD car in the robbery of
several hundreds of thousands of dollars from a drug courier, according to
statement by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. In that incident, Acosta’s
co-defendant in the case, Yorick Rafael Corniel-Perez, 34, made the cash
rip-off look like it was part of a law enforcement seizure, said Bharara.
Both Acosta, who had been on the force nine years until his
resignation Thursday, and Corniel-Perez live in the Bronx, said a law
enforcement official who asked not to be named. Both men were arrested as part
of a joint NYPD-FBI undercover investigation, a police spokesman said.
Acosta and Corniel-Perez met several times in October with
someone they believed to be a high-level drug trafficker from Colombia but who
was in fact a cooperating witness in the investigation, said Bharara. Acosta
boasted in those meetings that he could provide security for the movement of
the drugs from Long Island to the Bronx, according to the indictment.
In advance of the warehouse pickup, law enforcement
officials put “ten brick-shaped objects, wrapped in brown tape” in a
duffel bag so that it “appeared to be pre-packaged kilograms of
cocaine,” the indictment stated. At the warehouse, Acosta met another
confidential witness and took the duffel bag from his car for the drive back to
the Bronx, according to the indictment.
After Acosta dropped the duffel bag off in the Bronx he took
a $15,000 payment in a white plastic shopping bag from the purported Colombia
drug dealer, the indictment stated.
Both Acosta and Corniel-Perez face a maximum of life in
prison if they are convicted of the top conspiracy charge, said Bharara. The
crime carries a minimum term of 10 years, he added.
Arraignment information wasn’t available late Friday.
Via McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
