A Brooklyn, New York district attorney is trying to get 90 convictions dismissed from a former New York City Police Department detective’s record.
On Wednesday, District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said he plans on asking the court to remove 27 felonies and 63 convictions misdemeanor convictions from the record of former undercover NYPD detective Joseph Franco, according to NBC News. Franco was reportedly accused of framing a slew of suspects.
A New York County grand jury indicted Franco in April 2019 on several charges, including official misconduct and 16 counts of first-degree perjury. He was indicted on 10 counts of perjury three months later. Gonzalez said a review by his office’s Conviction Review Unit “did not uncover misconduct,” but he’s “lost confidence” in cases that needed Franco for them to be prosecuted.
“Knowingly and repeatedly framing innocent people obliterates the credibility of any police officer, and proving perjury in such circumstances is rare,” he said in a statement. “After a grand jury reviewed the evidence and indicted former Detective Franco, I have lost confidence in his work.”
He added,” His cases in Brooklyn are over a decade old, which limited our ability to reinvestigate them, but I cannot in good faith stand by convictions that principally relied on his testimony. Integrity and credibility are at the heart of the justice system and prerequisites for community trust.”
Some of the felony convictions were for the criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third or fifth degree. According to a statement obtained by NBC News, some of the misdemeanor convictions were for criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree.
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