New York Criminal Lawyer Blog
At some point in September, a police officer had an argument with a man with regards to the servicing of the officer’s beeper. The two had a verbal argument inside the man’s store and the man told the officer to leave. According to the man, he did not strike or threaten the officer. Nevertheless, the police officer calls for other authority to come to the store. When uniformed officers arrived at the scene, the police officer told them that she was also a police and she wanted the officers to arrest the man. The uniformed officers therefore complied. At the time of the incident, the police officer was not in uniform and was not working a tour of duty.
After the man was released from jail, he received an electronic page requesting him to call the police officer’s cousin. During the telephone conversation, the police officer’s cousin told the man that the police officer would be willing to drop the assault charge if the man will paid her $5000. After some negotiation, the police officer’s cousin and the man agreed upon $3000 as the price for dropping the charge. Later that day, the man contacted some detectives and enlisted their assistance in the matter.
Subsequently, the man meet-up with the offenders after they discussed the payment and the agreement about the charge. At the scene, the police officer placed a telephone call in which she allegedly spoke with an unidentified person about dropping the charges. The man then gave $3000 to another individual while the police officer was standing nearby during the exchange. The aforementioned transaction was then monitored by the agents. Consequently, the police officer and her colleague were arrested at the scene, immediately following the exchange.
Based on records, the first count of the charge alleges that the police officer, which acting in concert with the one another compelled or induced a person to engage in conduct which the latter has a legal right to decline from engaging in.
Moreover, to withdraw from engaging in conduct which he has a legal right to engage, by means of instilling in him a fear that, if the demand is not complied with, the doer or another will accuse some person of a crimes or cause criminal charges to be instituted against him, or use or abuse his position as a public servant by performing some act within or related to his official duties, or by failing to perform an official duty. With that matter as to affect some person adversely, and thereby compelling or inducing the victim to commit or attempt to commit a felony, namely, inducing and compelling the man to pay the offenders a quantity of the country’s currency in exchange to withdraw a criminal charges she caused to be brought against the man, and thus inducing and compelling the man to commit the crime of bribery in the third degree. Larceny could have been charged.
Sources revealed that the police officer encourages the court to dismiss the charges because, she claims, that her act of making a complaint as a private citizen, then allegedly offering to withdraw the complaint in exchange for a mere compensation for the injury she sustained, does not comprise any of the crimes charged in the action. However, in determining the legal sufficiency of the action, the court must view the evidence in the most favorable to the complainant.
The charges contained in the indictment pertain to public servants who abuse their office by engaging in acts relating to their official task. Based on record, a public servant is any public officer or employee of the state or of any political subdivision or any governmental instrumentality within the state, or any person exercising the functions of any such public officer or employee, as well as a person who has been elected or designated to become a public servant.
The court stated that there can be no uncertainty that if the police officer had arrested the complainant herself, and then solicited a bribe for dropping the arrest charges, the crimes alleged in the indictment would be appropriate. However, the officer claims that her case is evident because she was not on-duty and did not affect the arrest of the man. Consequently, the officer stands in the place of a civilian complainant, and as such, she may offer to drop the criminal charges in exchange for abandoning any legal claim she might have had against the man, without acquiring any unlawful liability.
Assuming the allegations of the complainant to be true, sources revealed that the police officer’s conduct was not only different from previous case in a legally significant way, but had a far more threatening purpose.
In the case, the officer is alleged to have identified herself to her brother officers and instructed them to arrest the man. Afterward, she solicited money from him in exchange for withdrawing her false complaint. One may reasonably conclude that the man logically assumed that, as a police officer who had the power to direct his arrest, the officer had the power to drop the charges. As a police officer, the offender had an obligation not to file a false complaint against the man, and having filed the complaint, had a duty to withdraw the charges without soliciting or accepting any benefit. In the court’s opinion, in filing the false complaint and soliciting a bribe in exchange to drop the charges, the offender was acting within her colorable authority as a police officer. In addition, her acts may have been unlawful does not affect the decision.
The court, in rejecting the argument, held that the purpose and the natural effect of the act is to change the police of the state, and that a decision to institute proceedings in the federal courts to end an act which disturbs the peace and order of the community cannot be said to be wholly outside of the functions of the police officer, in spite of the fact that the sale of liquor was not prohibited by state law.
In sum, the court’s interpretation of the scope of an officer’s official functions not only comports with a reasonable reading of the contested laws, but promotes justice and affects the objects of the law. The power of a police officer is near its height when implementing authority over a person’s liberty and only when an officer uses deadly force do his or her powers exceed that of arrest. It is essential to ensure public confidence that the police will apply the weighty authority fairly and justly, and that criminal abuses of their authority will not be tolerated by the justice system.
Consequently, the court denied the motion of the offenders to dismiss the charges against them. However, counts one and two, charging coercion in the first degree and grand larceny in the second degree, respectively, will be reduced to attempted coercion in the first degree and attempted grand larceny in the second degree. Further, counts one and two require evidence that the offenders instilled fear in the man. However, by the time the transaction took place, the man had already contacted and was working with the detectives, and therefore, his fear arising out of the offender’s actions had ended.
It is hard to accept allegations because it could harm your well-being. If you want to maintain your rights and you want to obtain what is appropriate for you, you can hire the Kings County Criminal Attorney. Stephen Bilkis and Associates can also suggest the expertise of the Kings County Grand Larceny Lawyer together with the Kings County Robbery Attorney.