Brooklyn prosecutors want to toss convictions tainted by criminal cops

Prosecutors in Brooklyn are calling for the reversal of 378 criminal convictions connected to 13 former New York Police Department officers convicted of criminal offenses, according to The New York Times.

The convictions in question are low-level drug and traffic cases dating from 1999 to the present. Prosecutors all over the city have been revisiting these cases that depended on the work of officers convicted of crimes that directly related to their work.

Brooklyn district attorney Eric Gonzalez has been reviewing tainted convictions since last year. Revisiting these cases began after the state court called convictions involving former narcotics detective Joseph E. Franco into question. In April 2021, Gonzalez requested that the court dismiss 90 convictions related to the officer based on his charges of committing perjury and other crimes while working undercover.

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On Wednesday, Gonzalez asked for an additional 15 convictions involving felony charges under his jurisdiction to be reversed. The prosecutor's office and Legal Aid Society found that several of those cases resulted in jail time for the defendant.

Gonzalez stated, "These convictions continue to hang around people and impact them in all kinds of ways." Gonzalez added, "Had we known about these officers, we would never have brought these cases."

Gonzalez's office intends to submit the remaining convictions for review in the next few weeks.