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Ticket-Fixing Scandal an Embarrassment for NYPD, Bloomberg Says

By DNAinfo Staff on May 27, 2011 10:57am  | Updated on May 27, 2011 10:33am

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly participate in Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, on May 5, 2010 in Washington DC
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly participate in Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, on May 5, 2010 in Washington DC
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Mark Wilson/Getty Images

By Jill Colvin

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN — The NYPD ticket-fixing scandal is an embarrassment to the NYPD, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday.

Speaking on his weekly radio show, Bloomberg again addressed allegations of ticket-fixing involving dozens of officers accused of voiding tickets ranging from speeding violations and DWIs to domestic violence incidents.

"This is embarrassing to the greatest police department in the world and we're going to go after it," Bloomberg said, after agreeing that the "story seems to have legs."

The Bronx District Attorney's office is currently leading an investigation, expected to wrap up soon, into allegations that hundreds of cops across the city made tickets disappear for family, friends and local big shots.

But Bloomberg again tried to assure the public that the department is doing everything it can to get to the bottom of it. The NYPD is set to launch its own investigation once the DA’s work is done.

"Ray Kelly’s all over it," he assured, adding that stamping out future corruption has become a top priority for the department.

"Nobody wants to have a police department without this kind of petty corruption ... more than Ray Kelly. He’s as focused on this as anything," said Bloomberg.

"We have no tolerance for it. It should never have happened."

Still, the mayor said that ticket-fixing is likely to be as old as the department itself.

"It’s apparently been going on for, maybe since police departments were started… back in the Egyptian days," he said.

As DNAinfo's Murray Weiss first reported, numerous officers have allegedly been caught on tape in the act of making tickets disappear for fellow officers, sports executives and politicians.

In one tape obtained by DNAinfo, an officer in Westchester can be heard in what sounds like a cover-up of an alleged DWI incident involving an officer from a Manhattan East Side precinct.

"I have one of your guys (from the NYPD) down the block," the sergeant says, according to a recorded conversation between the NYPD cop and another friend. "He is bombed — Bad!"

The sergeant explained that the "bombed" cop had just knocked down two light poles and two parking meters and had led local cops on a chase before being stopped.

"I am f---ing happy to have this guy sign these f---ing summonses," the local sergeant explained. "But he is fighting us," he said.

The Westchester cops had tried to get the NYPD officer to sign a summons declaring the incident merely a car accident — with no DWI reported.

In addition, several officers also allegedly tried to make domestic violence incidents involving off-duty cops disappear.

Some cops are also being probed for receiving money, free meals or booze for "favors," while others allegedly had renovations done to their homes or repairs made to their cars or were given choice seats at sporting events, sources have said.