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The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Cops Still Get Asked to Fix Tickets Despite Arrests

By Murray Weiss | November 10, 2011 6:30am

You would think that just three days after 16 cops were arrested in a massive NYPD ticket fixing scandal, no one would ask officers to a summons disappear.

But last week in the Bronx, a top aide to a local politician tried to do just that, DNAinfo has learned.

Sources told "On the Inside" that an aide to a state senator, whose name is being withheld by DNAinfo, tried unsuccessfully to have a ticket yanked after bringing his boss to an event at Cardinal Spellman High School on Oct. 31, where the Archdiocese of New York was holding a symposium for its teachers.

The NYPD had anticipated a large crowd of teachers, church officials, and local and political figures, and set aside an area near the school for cars to angle park so there would be enough room for everyone. But snow from the Halloween Nor'easter had been plowed into the zone, reducing the number of available spots.

Instead of looking for parking elsewhere, some guests parked illegally.

Enter the traffic agents, who began slapping orange summonses on windshields.

Suddenly, the visibly agitated state senator's aide, rushed up to the NYPD supervisors who were near the school.

"You have to do something about the tickets," he said, according to sources.

The "white shirt" cops could not believe their ears, sources said. “And what would you have us do?’ one incredulous supervisor asked.

"You have to have [the tickets] fixed," came the answer, the sources said.

"You gotta be kidding, right?" asked the cop.

"No, we have to do something about these tickets," the aide insisted.

This time the “white shirt” made it clear. No.

The befuddled aide got the point.  “I have a friend at the Department of Finance, I will call him,” he said and then marched away.

Owen Stone, a spokesman for the Department of Finance, said his agency does not have the authority to fix a summons. Nor would it if it could.

I have heard other incredible stories, too.

In one, a retired police sergeant tried to get a ticket killed last week. He reached out to a PBA delegate about a moving violation ticket that a friend of his received from a Brooklyn highway cop.

When the delegate told him he could not help, the retired cop asked if it "would be better if he called the cop directly who had issued the ticket,” sources said.

The delegate said no.

Lest anyone think the extent of the damage inflicted by the ticket fixing scandal is complete, sources told "On the Inside" that the ticket-fixing probe is about to extend from the NYPD to other law enforcement agencies.

The Bronx District Attorney's office, which spearheaded the NYPD investigation, is about to send information to other agencies about incidents where cops may have been involved in fixing a ticket or covering up alleged drunk driving. 

The other police agenices include the New York State Police, New Jersey State Police, The Palisades Parkway Police, the Yonkers Police Department and the Port Authority Police Department, sources said.