Police Officers' Failure to Report Criminal Activity for Their Own Personal Interest
According to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/08/nyregion/retired-new-york-officers-an…; target="”_blank”">an
article in the New York <i>Times</i> this week</a>, dozens of New York
City, as well as Nassau and Suffolk County, police officers were
arrested for grand larceny relating to a scheme to fraudulently get
disability pensions through Social Security. It is somewhat like the
Long Island Railroad disability scam I wrote about in <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/545" target="”_blank”">a 2008 blog post</a>.<br>
<br>
But there is one big difference here. It is the job of police
officers to arrest people they know are committing crimes. That is
why the guilty here are not just those who actually retired with a
disability pension, or were part of the scheme that allowed them to
do this. Those who knew about the scheme are also guilty of not
doing what it would have taken to have the scheme investigated long
before it finally was.<br>
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One line from the article stood out for me: "The defendants
generally first contacted Mr. Esposito, who was known in law
enforcement circles for helping people secure disability benefits."
Esposito, a retired police officer himself, is said to have coached police officers "to act symptomatic" during
psychiatric exams.<br>
<br>
"Known in law enforcement circles" implies that, beyond the dozens
who allegedly took advantage of Esposito's expertise, there were
hundreds, maybe thousands, who knew about the work he and his fellow conspirators were doing, and
sat on their hands, either because they hoped to take advantage of
this expertise some day or because they didn't want to rat on their
colleagues.<br>
<br>
In other words, they failed to do their duty, they gave preferential
treatment to Esposito and his fellows, for their own personal
benefit and for the benefit of their fellow officers, without
thinking for a second about the good of the community. This is a
classic case of ethical misconduct (and a classic case of an unhealthy ethics environment), and it should be investigated
and sanctioned. Every police officer, present and past, who knew
about what was going on should be fined in order to make up for the
taxpayer funds that were fraudulently taken. Higher-level officers
who knew and did nothing should be fired.<br>
<br>
This will send the message that, even in
the form of inaction, the preferential treatment of
criminals by police officers, for their own personal interest, is unacceptable behavior and will be punished.
Anything less is an invitation to do it again.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
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