The couple was arrested, along with the seven officers and 41 others, in September after a three-year investigation that began with an anonymous officer's tip to the Police Department's internal affairs unit. The seven officers were immediately suspended without pay; two other officers were stripped of their guns and badges and placed on administrative duty.
The ring always managed to be one step ahead of the police because, the authorities said, the officers clued in Paz when investigations were underway and raids were planned. Once, in 2017, the police smashed into what had been a brothel on the border between Gowanus and Park Slope.
But it had shut down shortly before the police made their move. And that was not the only time the brothels that neighbours had complained about or police investigators had targeted simply packed up and vanished before arrests could be made.
The authorities said Paz, who was sworn in as a police officer in 1990, had a clean record until he retired in 2010, but his time as an officer and detective served as preparation for his new career, overseeing pimps and prostitutes.
What paid off was what he knew, both about police practices and procedures and about who was involved in ongoing investigations. From his years with the police, he knew what investigators would look for and what rules they had to follow, one of which was that they could not expose themselves during an encounter with a prostitute.
So he instructed brothel workers to screen customers, making them drop their pants.
Often, he also had inside information about who was involved in investigations. The authorities accused one of the seven arrested officers, Rene Samaniego, 44, a detective who had worked in the Brooklyn South vice unit, with providing information that helped the brothels elude the police. The authorities said there were eight brothels in all, located in Brooklyn, Queens and Hempstead, on Long Island.
The illegal lottery operations — which authorities said included managers, runners and agents with working offices where bets were placed — were located in Queens and Brooklyn.
For $500 a week on top of his police salary, Samaniego provided descriptions about police investigators who were working undercover, including what they looked like and what they were wearing — details that were passed along to brothel workers, who, in turn, screened men who appeared to be prospective customers. Samaniego was said to have passed along the information while he was on duty — sometimes when he was assigned to a police team working outside a brothel.
Samaniego, who pleaded guilty to two corruption charges on May 8, is to be sentenced next month. He was dismissed from the force on the day he entered the plea.
Written by: James Barron
© 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES
