BROOKLYN — An FDNY firefighter was busted Tuesday after investigators caught him selling Vicodin and Xanax in front of his Red Hook firehouse, officials said.
Daniel Torres, 33, was arrested at about 6:10 a.m. while driving to work on the Staten Island Expressway and charged with conspiracy, criminal sale of a controlled substance and selling near school grounds, according to an indictment.
NYPD officials first learned Torres might be selling drugs in March during a separate investigation and set up a wiretap on him.
The Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s Office and Department of Investigation monitored the wiretap and recorded him setting up drug sales through texts and calls, prosecutor said.
Investigators then observed Torres sell 80 Vicodin pills to a customer at Third Avenue and 20th Street in Gowanus on June 15. The intersection is one block away from an Islamic private school.
Then on Aug. 30 Torres sold another 80 pills of Vicodin, 28 Xanax pills and gave away a free sample of heroin in front of his firehouse at 252 Lorraine St., officials said. The firehouse is about three blocks away from the Choo Choo Train Daycare center.
He was reassigned to the FDNY Recruitment Unit in the fall.
"These are very serious charges that — if true — will result in his termination as a firefighter," Fire Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro said.
Torres, who lives in Rahway, New Jersey, was arraigned on the indictment in Manhattan Supreme Court Tuesday afternoon and held on $25,000 bail.
He is due back in court on Dec. 20.
His lawyer did not return an immediate request for comment.
