Trump's NYPD donations let him bypass gun license restrictions, ex-cop says
President Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Michael Cohen allegedly got "VIP treatment" from the New York Police Department, and it apparently helped them score gun licenses that are usually hard to come by.
That's what former NYPD Lt. Paul Dean is claiming in a federal sentencing document he filed Wednesday. The admissions come in response to Dean's guilty plea in a "gun licensing bribery scheme," and in an attempt to soften his Jan. 31 sentencing for the crime, the New York Post reports.
Dean, a former second-in-command in the NYPD's licensing division, retired in 2016 to act as a middleman between his former colleagues and people who were willing to bribe them for an expedited gun license, prosecutors say. He pleaded guilty to the charges last August, and could face up to five years in prison.
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But now, Dean is trying to sweeten his sentence by spilling names of those who "got hard-to-obtain gun licenses — whether they deserved them or not — allegedly because of their money and influence," the Post writes. Trump, Trump Jr., and Cohen got full-carry gun licenses "even though the proper credentials were not in the file because of their generous donations to the Police Athletic League or the NYC Police Foundation," the sentencing document says. Also on the list were the late Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, former Sony CEO Tommy Matola, and actor Tracy Morgan, who had a prior felony conviction.
The people Dean named were not part of the bribery scheme he admitted to being involved with, per the sentencing document. Read more at the New York Post.
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