By Matthew Chayes
New York Newsday
NEW YORK — Two undercover New York police officers in Queens who prosecutors say had clubgoers falsely arrested on trumped-up charges of cocaine dealing pleaded not guilty yesterday to a litany of felony corruption charges.
Officer Henry Tavarez and former Det. Stephen Anderson were indicted on charges that they used cash and cocaine-filled Ziploc bags seized from later-convicted suspects as evidence against innocent men last January during an undercover buy-and-bust operation at an Elmhurst nightclub, prosecutors said.
Charges against the falsely accused were later dismissed when the club’s surveillance video obtained by their attorneys exonerated them, showing the men barely moved from one spot at the bar - and had no interaction with the cops.
Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown said the charges against Tavarez, a police officer for about four years, and Anderson, with about eight years on the job, could land the lawmen in prison for up to nine years.
“The motive, as far as I’m concerned, is for them simply to appear as if they were doing their job that night or perhaps to make a little extra overtime,” Brown said.
Two of the falsely accused men, brothers Jose, 24, and Maximo Colon, 28, have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in Brooklyn. They lost their grocery store because their arrests led to the state taking away their right to sell lottery tickets, beer and cigarettes.
The innocent men’s arrests happened the evening of Jan. 4, 2008 at Club Delicioso, a bar at 43-24 91st Place. Six men were accused of drug dealing that night; two have since pleaded guilty, and charges against the innocent men, the Colon brothers and Raul Duchimasa and Luis Rodriguez, were dismissed months later.
An attorney for the Colon brothers, Rochelle S. Berliner of Forest Hills, said her clients endured the shame of an arrest, a humiliating strip search and lost their livelihoods.
Tavarez, 27, who has been placed on modified duty, and Anderson, 33, who left the New York Police Department last year to join the Nassau County Police Department, were released on bail from Queens Criminal Court after their arraignments before Judge James P. Griffin.
Anderson, of Suffolk County, who had taken Nassau’s 2003 civil-service exam, left the Nassau police academy Oct. 31 of last year after just five months “for personal reasons,” said Det. Sgt. Anthony Repalone, a police spokesman.
Anderson’s attorney, Bruce Wenger of Manhattan, said his client should be presumed innocent like any other defendant.
Tavarez’s attorney, Larry Fredella, said his client was new to undercover work and was following orders of more experienced officers that night.
Copyright 2009 Newsday, Inc.