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Mayor Bloomberg Says Ticket-Fixing 'Almost Impossible' Today

By DNAinfo Staff on April 18, 2011 3:06pm

Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in Brooklyn Monday to break ground on a new brownfield clean-up site.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in Brooklyn Monday to break ground on a new brownfield clean-up site.
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DNAinfo/Jill Colvin

By Jill Colvin

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

BROOKLYN — Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that alleged police ticket-fixing would be "almost impossible" today thanks to a new electronic monitoring system.

The comments come as the the city awaits the results of a massive investigation whose scale was first reported by DNAinfo. Hundreds of cops could face disciplinary action for making tickets disappear for family and friends before the probe is over.

Some allegedly took money to fix tickets, while others failed to show up at court so that tickets were dismissed.

Bloomberg declined to comment on the alleged scandal, citing the ongoing investigation. But he said the police department's new electronic system makes fixing tickets today "almost impossible."

"There's always a possibility of somebody scamming any system, you can never make it 100 percent bulletproof," he said. "[But] the practice of just calling up and saying 'Can you fix a ticket for me?' really isn’t possible anymore because once something’s in the database electronically there's somebody that can look to see what’s removed and go and see why," Bloomberg told reporters at an unrelated press conference in Brooklyn.

"So I think if it is a problem — and I’ll leave that to the investigation — it was a problem in the past and certainly is very unlikely to be a problem today," he said.

The new system, created by the NYPD last summer, allows summonses to be tracked electronically, making it impossible to erase them or tamper with them online.

A grand jury in the Bronx, though, is looking into incidents going back to 2008. It's reviewing evidence in the citywide probe, which is based on hundreds of hours of recorded conversations, source told DNAinfo.

State Police have implemented a similar system to protect against fraud as well.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly acknowledged the investigation last week.