Corrupt City. Tra Verdejo

we had a few COs from Rikers Island come in and scoop me up, making it seem like I got transferred to there. Before I left, Thirty-eight told me to look him up when I got out. I told him once I posted bail I would. I waited a week before I went to Patterson Projects, looking for him. When I got there, it was like they were expecting me. They were showing me a lot of love for helping Thirty-eight. That same day, I was introduced to Money Mike and the rest of the crew, and Thirty-eight spoke highly of me.

      “Within days, I knew their whole operation. Five months later, I had a wiretap on the whole organization. With my intel, we were able to identify all the top members and their ranks. We knew where the stash house was located, their connections, plus drop-off and pickup locations. I had so much information on them, we didn’t need a snitch for this case. It was a slam dunk.”

      “Impressive. So what happened next? Did all the members from M&M get convicted?”

      “No.”

      “What do you mean? I can’t believe you. Why not?” Johnson fired back with a puzzled face.

      “Deals below the table were cut. Information was leaked about how we illegally arrested Thirty-eight. A lot of charges were dropped, and my evidence was not admissible in the court of law.”

      “You mean to tell me the wiretaps were not accepted?”

      “I had Money Mike on tape ordering hits and talking about his operation. I recorded meetings between all the members and Money Mike. They were all incriminating themselves, talking about murder, kidnapping, and money laundering. You name it, they talked about it on my wiretap. We all heard the tapes together.”

      “Donald, can you please clarify for the court who you mean by ‘all of us’?”

      “I’m referring to my partners sitting over there. We all heard the tapes together. We played those wiretaps over and over, like a Marvin Gaye record.”

      “So everyone from M&M walked, how?” Johnson asked.

      “Not everyone. But Money Mike only did eighteen months, and four others were sentenced to only two to six bids. I don’t know how, especially with all the evidence we had, but you would have to ask my former employers sitting over there why.” Lucky pointed at his former partners.

      “So you are testifying today that there was foul play?”

      “I object, Your Honor. This testimony has nothing to do with the current case. This is an irrelevant testimony.”

      “I agree. Counsel, get to the point,” the judge stated.

      “I’m just trying to bring to light the criminal behavior of these police officers, including Donald Gibson himself. Donald, you may continue,” Mr. Johnson said.

      “I recorded those wiretaps myself. I felt betrayed. Everyone in my department turned their heads. I risked my life, and it seemed like no one cared. A few days later, our captain called a meeting to discuss our new target. I tried to ask about the M&M case, and he snapped at me. They wanted me to turn my cheek like they did. At first I couldn’t, but after a while, it became old news, and I just went with the flow.”

      “So just like that, you were given a new target? Who was the new target?”

      “This delivery service company located in Manhattan, called Mr. G Express. We got a tip they were delivering cocaine all over New York.”

      “Who provided the tip?”

      “We used to pay all our informants lots of money if they provided good information.”

      “How much did it cost for this tip?”

      “Around twenty thousand dollars.”

      “Twenty thousand? Wow! Where did the money come from?”

      “Like I said, we were governed by a different set of rules. We never once turned in drug money we seized, not once.”

      “I object, Your Honor,” Matthew yelled. “This is all speculation.”

      “Overruled.”

      “Go ahead, Donald, finish what you were saying,” a cocky Johnson said.

      “We never turned in confiscated drug money. We created our own budget. For example, once we paid this informant on a tip about a Dominican crew smuggling drugs through fifty-four-foot trailers coming up from Miami. We infiltrated the buy. We confiscated 450 kilos of cocaine, over fifty brand-new guns, and 1.5 million dollars in cash. We only reported the 400 kilos and the guns. We never turned in the money.”

      “What happened to the money and the fifty kilos of cocaine?”

      “We split the money. Tango was no longer with us at the time. We each took $200,000 for our personal use. We put the other $500,000 in the budget along with the drugs. In our line of work and how deep undercover we worked, we needed to produce cash, drugs, and guns quickly, so I will say at times, it was necessary to have that amount of money and drugs. We abused the system, using and keeping a lot of money for our own personal use.”

      “No one ever questioned your team or made you guys follow guidelines?”

      “No. It was like we were given the green light to do whatever we wanted.”

      “Whatever happened to M&M?” a curious Johnson asked.

      “Karma. Money Mike was murdered, and his crew fell apart.”

      “What about the Mr. G delivery business? Who led that investigation?”

      “Loose Cannon—I mean Steve. I don’t know how or why, but I kept my mouth shut. We didn’t call him Loose Cannon for nothing. We spent about four months trying to find a lead, but we couldn’t. We really thought we were taken for a ride by the informant. We followed every delivery boy on foot, bike, and car. We had nothing, until we illegally got access to Mr. G’s computer and his network.”

      “What do you mean by illegal access?”

      “I object, Your Honor. Witness is testifying to a third-party conversation.”

      “Overruled. This is all credible testimony.”

      “I don’t know how Steve got the access. I just know he showed up with a disk full of information. Mr. G’s computer became our personal informant. His company seemed legal, at least to the naked eye. We couldn’t digest all the computer language, and he had a bunch of codes and passwords, so we hired an ex-con computer geek, and he was able to hack the files. We’d found the break we needed.

      “One of the first things we noticed was, Mr. G had another warehouse we didn’t know about. This warehouse was located in Long Island City, Queens. That same night, Jeffrey, Steve, and I watched the new warehouse all night. About four in the morning, the main gate opened up, and a white van with tinted windows drove out.

      “We followed the van all the way to East Harlem. The van stopped at 110th Street and Lexington Avenue. We parked on 111th Street. Five minutes later, we noticed a Hispanic man walk up to the van, and an exchange was made. We thought we were following the van because they were making a drop. Come to find out, the driver was a heroin addict just out buying a quick fix. We pulled the van over right before he jumped back on the FDR Drive on 116^th Street and Pleasant Avenue. We arrested the driver, and if my memory serves me correctly, his name was Robert, yeah, Robert. We were hoping the van was dirty, but it wasn’t. All we had on Robert was the few bags of heroin. He was not cooperating either. We needed him to talk, so we started offering him all kinds of deals.”

      “What kind of deals?” Johnson asked.

      “Money. We started at a thousand and offered as much as five thousand, but he didn’t want the money. All he wanted was his heroin, so Steve went into the captain’s office. Ten minutes later, they are letting Robert shoot dope right in the interrogation room.”

      “Donald, you mean to tell me you guys let a heroin addict shoot up just to get information out of him?”

      “We