June 1, 2000

BROAD CHANNEL MAN ARRESTED FOR FALSELY ACCUSING POLICE OFFICER OF BUYING DRUGS

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown and New York City Police Commissioner Howard Safir announced today the arrest of a Broad Channel man who allegedly falsely accused a police officer assigned to the 100^th Precinct of buying drugs from him on 20 or 30 occasions.

District Attorney Brown said, Allegations of wrong doing against police officers go to the heart of the criminal justice system. We must be satisfied that those who represent the law obey the law. When an accusation is made only to exact revenge against an officer, we will vigorously prosecute the person who makes such charges."

Police Commissioner Howard Safir said, "We take each and every allegation against our police officers very seriously. And we also take false accusations very seriously as well. In this case, as in all cases, we thoroughly investigated the charges Mr. Ott brought against one of our police officer and found that he made those charges in retaliation for summonses he had received from the officer. Mr. Ott will now face criminal charges as a result of his actions."

District Attorney Brown identified the defendant as Frederick Ott, 19, of 10 West 18^th Street, Broad Channel, New York. He is charged with falsifying business records and falsely reporting an incident. He faces up to 4 years in prison.

According to the charges, the defendant told police officers in January 2000 that a police officer from the 100^th Precinct had been involved in buying drugs. It is alleged that the defendant claimed that Theresa Meyers, a business acquaintance of his from Belle Harbor, told him that it was alright to sell drugs to the police officer and that he further claimed he sold drugs to him weekly from July until October 1999.

According to the criminal court complaint, an investigation was immediately undertaken by the Police Department's Internal Affairs Bureau which determined that there was no basis for the allegations. When confronted with the result of the investigation, the defendant is alleged to have told arresting officers he had made up the story because the officer had written him numerous summonses and embarrassed him in front of his girlfriend. He allegedly stated that he had ripped up the summonses and as a result, his license had been suspended.

Assistant District Attorney Robert Ciesla of the District Attorney's Integrity Bureau, which is under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney James Liander and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney Peter A. Crusco, is in charge of the case.

It should be noted that an arrest is merely an accusation and that a defendant should be presumed innocent until proven guilty.