MANHATTAN — An NYPD cop already in trouble within the department trafficked cocaine and marijuana for cash, promising an undercover officer that she would use her badge to ward off other police, according to an indictment filed Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Suspended Officer Nysia Stroud, 29, who had been reassigned to Fleet Services Division without her badge and gun, was indicted for official misconduct and running marijuana and more than a kilogram of cocaine between April and June, according to the Manhattan District Attorney's office.
Investigators with the Internal Affairs Bureau were tipped off to Stroud's activity and sent undercover officers to proposition her to carry drugs for up to $1,000 per trip, according to prosecutors.
The undercover cops caught Stroud 14 times on video and audio surveillance negotiating with the officer posing as a drug dealer, the DA said.
Stroud told the undercover that she would use the phrase "shopping at Woodbury" as code for trafficking drugs and flash her badge to deter police if she were stopped, prosecutors said.
"Brazen criminal conduct by a member of law enforcement constitutes a grievous breach of duty and public trust," District Attorney Cyrus Vance said of the case.
It wasn't immediately clear where Stroud trafficked the drugs from. The NYPD also refused to disclose what her earlier infraction was that led to her disciplinary transfer. They also declined to say what precinct she had been assigned to previously.
At Tuesday’s arraignment Stroud entered the courtroom in handcuffs wearing a blue hoodie pulled over her face. She sat next to her mother in the audience with her head down until she was called to the stand.
Judge Jill Konviser asked officers to push the hood back as she sat next to her attorney, Alex Grosshtern.
At the end of the hearing, the judge set the bail at half a million dollars and ordered Nysia to surrender her passport after Assistant District Attorney Robert Cannata told the court that she had recently visited Jamaica.
Outside the courtroom, Grosshstern raised doubts that his client would have run drugs knowing she was being closely monitored on modified duty.
"She'd been on modified duty for about a year, but these allegations are from recently," Grosshtern said. "She was being watched closely, she’s been watched under a microscope."
Nysia is due back in court on September 5.
