Former NYPD Auxiliary Sergeant Sentenced in Manhattan Federal Court to 127 Months in Prison for Conspiring to Distribute Narcotics

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that Rafael Jimenez, a former auxiliary police sergeant with the New York City Police Department (NYPD), was sentenced today in Manhattan federal court to 127 months in prison for participating in a conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Jimenez pled guilty in November 2010. He was sentenced today by United States District Judge Katherine B. Forrest.

Jimenez’s co-defendant Alfredo Rivera, a retired NYPD officer, was found guilty following a four-day jury trial in February 2012 of one count of participating in a conspiracy to distribute cocaine and one count of using, carrying, and possessing a firearm in connection with that conspiracy.

According to the indictment, other documents filed in the case, and statements made in court during the guilty plea and sentencing proceedings:

During a meeting with a government informant (the “First Informant”) in January 2010, Jimenez said he would use an armed retired NYPD officer to assist in the transportation of cocaine. In February of 2010, Jimenez and Rivera met with a second government informant (the “Second Informant”), whom Jimenez and Rivera believed to be a large-scale cocaine distributor. During the meeting, Rivera—who was armed with an NYPD-issued 9mm handgun—told the Second Informant that if stopped by the police, “I just show my I.D. and my shield...they always say, ‘Get out of here.’” Jimenez and Rivera subsequently agreed to transport a 10-kilogram load of cocaine from a warehouse in Long Island to a narcotics customer in the Bronx, New York. Rivera agreed to be paid $1,200 per kilogram of cocaine transported, for a total of $12,000, and further agreed to use a portion of that money to pay Jimenez for his role in the transaction. On March 23, 2010, while armed with the handgun, Rivera drove to a warehouse in Long Island, where he was observed by law enforcement agents picking up a duffel bag that contained approximately 10 kilograms of a white substance consistent with the appearance of cocaine. Rivera then drove the bag from the warehouse to the Bronx.

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In addition to the prison term, Judge Forrest sentenced Jimenez, 58, of New York, New York, to five years of supervised release and ordered him to pay a $100 special assessment fee.

Rivera, 53, of the Bronx, New York, is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Forrest on May 18, 2012. He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Mr. Bharara praised the outstanding investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau.

This case is being handled by the Office’s Public Corruption Unit. Assistant United States Attorneys Brian A. Jacobs and Howard S. Master are in charge of the prosecution.