Last year, New York police officers were seen dancing in the streets just before arresting four men in a city nightclub on charges of selling $100 worth of cocaine. It took six months and the men’s life savings, but their names were finally cleared when prosecutors took the unusual step of announcing in court that the men had committed no crime.
That’s because club surveillance video shows that the undercover cops had no contact with the accused men in the two hours they were in the club.
Now, club owner Eduardo Espinoza says the police are retaliating against him.
Espinoza said he thinks police are retaliating against him because of a strange phone call he received shortly before the harassment began.
A man who identified himself as the officer who made the drug arrest in his club demanded to know if Espinoza had taped the events of that night.
“I said I already gave it to the defendants,” Espinoza said, “He said, ‘Oh s–t.’ He hung up.”
Espinoza had received just two summonses in the two-and-a-half years he owned the club prior to turning over the videotapes. He has received more than a dozen since.
“I been harassed so much, I’m selling my business,” said Espinoza, owner of Delicias de Mi Tierra on 91st Place in Elmhurst.
“Every two to three weeks, there’s cops in here, searching the bar. If there’s no violation, they’ll make it up. I lost all my clients – everybody’s scared to come in my place right now.”
The officers implicated by the surveillance tapes are being investigated, but still on duty.
