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Cop Pleads Guilty to Trying to Steal Hidden Cash From Inwood Apartment

By DNAinfo Staff on October 19, 2011 6:38pm

Suspended police officer Shawn Jenkins, 43, pleaded guilty to trying to steal $900,000.
Suspended police officer Shawn Jenkins, 43, pleaded guilty to trying to steal $900,000.
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DNAinfo/John Marshall Mantel

MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — A police officer pleaded guilty to plotting the theft of $900,000 he believed was stashed under the floorboards of an Inwood apartment by a drug dealer he claimed he'd worked for, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Shawn Jenkins, 43, admitted to planning to break into a home at 5008 Broadway, near West 213th Street, using surveillance equipment and his perceived authority as a police officer to gain entry to the apartment of a new tenant, who moved in after the dealer was deported. 

The DA said Jenkins, who had been assigned to the highway safety patrol at East Harlem's 23rd Precinct, was going to use a Taser to subdue the tenant and had hired a locksmith to try to break in prior to that.

He was also planning to show a fake search warrant in order to gain access to the apartment or would have sought a warrant under false pretenses, prosecutors said.

Jenkins, who planned the break-in for a year beginning in May 2008, made repeated trips to the building to scope it out and even sought the help of another officer who was actually an informant.

According to court papers, Jenkins said the drug dealer gave him a diagram of the apartment with instructions for locating the money, which he claimed was hidden in the closet under a floorboard. The money was never recovered, prosecutors said.  

“The defendant’s actions represent a serious abuse of the public trust by a law enforcement officer who swore to uphold our laws and protect the public,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said in a statement.

Jenkins, who was suspended from the NYPD on May 13, 2009, is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 6 for the attempted burglary and conspiracy charges.