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Robert Smith, age 45, of Plainview, was sentenced to eight years behind bars Wednesday, April 20, in federal court in Brooklyn.
It followed his guilty plea in October 2021 to charges of using interstate facilities to commit bribery and attempting to transport heroin.
Federal prosecutors said Smith, while working as a NYPD officer assigned to the 105th Precinct in Queens, engaged in numerous acts of corruption between 2016 and the months following his retirement in March 2020.
That included directing car accident victims to a specific tow truck and repair business, instead of following official NYPD protocol to locate an appropriate towing company to respond to crash sites, prosecutors said.
In exchange for his referrals, Smith and another NYPD officer, Robert Hassett, of Brookhaven, were given thousands of dollars in cash bribe payments, prosecutors said.
Hassett, who retired from the NYPD following his arrest in May 2021, is currently awaiting his sentencing after pleading guilty in October 2021 to conspiracy to violate the Travel Act.
Federal prosecutors also accused Smith and Hassett of raking in more than $7,000 for selling the personal information of more than 100 recent car crash victims taken from NYPD databases. Both men understood that the information would then be sold to physical therapy businesses and personal injury attorneys so they could solicit the victims as customers, prosecutors said.
Smith was finally arrested in May 2021 after unknowingly meeting with undercover law enforcement officers posing as drug traffickers.
After expressing interest in participating in a scheme to traffic drugs, he told them he could carry a firearm and his retired NYPD identification while transporting the drugs, prosecutors said.
He also referred to himself as “one of the most corrupt cops in the 105,” a reference to NYPD’s 105th Precinct in Queens, prosecutors said.
During another encounter with an undercover officer, he allegedly accepted a bag containing what Smith believed to be a kilogram of heroin, which he gave to another undercover officer in exchange for nearly $1,200.
A third former NYPD officer, Heather Busch, of Massapequa, was sentenced to six months in federal prison in February 2022 after pleading guilty to using interstate facilities to commit bribery.
“Corruption not only endangers the communities that police officers are sworn to serve, but it also corrodes the public’s trust in law enforcement and the criminal justice system,” Breon Peace, US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.
“Robert Smith and his co-defendants were corrupt officers who sold out their badges for personal gain without regard for the betrayal and the harm they caused the NYPD and their fellow officers. Today’s sentence should send a message that this Office, together with our law enforcement partners, will work diligently to investigate and prosecute corrupt public servants who exploit their positions of power for profit.”
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