A former NYPD officer who leaked information to an international cocaine trafficking ring will spend 33 months in federal prison after a Brooklyn judge said he “betrayed that sacred trust” given to police officers.
Amaury Abreu, 38, an 11-year NYPD veteran, had a secret life as the close confidant to the leader of a drug ring that smuggled hundreds of kilos of cocaine from the Dominican Republic to New York City and Long Island.
He personally took part in a 1-kilo deal in 2016, and helped the drug ring by accessing an NYPD arrest database to check if a member of the gang had a warrant against him a few days before the man traveled to the Dominican Republic, prosecutors said.
He also provided the ring’s leader, Ramon Romero, with info on a law enforcement operation against members of a rival drug ring, and provided him a license plate to help him avoid police attention, the feds said. Romero pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import narcotics in June, and is awaiting sentencing.
Abreu, who worked out of the 113th Precinct in Queens, was arrested in November 2020 and pleaded guilty to a narcotics conspiracy charge last year. He retired from the NYPD last year as well.
The NYPD 113th Precinct stationhouse on Baisley Blvd. in Queens. (Jeff Bachner for New York Daily News)
In an emotional plea for the court’s mercy, Abreu begged for three months of home confinement, saying he had “tremendous remorse, shame and regret” for his actions.
Dozens of his family members packed the rows at his Brooklyn Federal Court sentencing Monday, including his infirm father, for whom he acts as caretaker.
Abreu said he wrongly treated the drug ring’s leader as a best friend and a brother, and should have turned away after learning his true nature.
“My loyalty should have been to my friends and my family … my family and the public that I served,” he said. “I let my need for validation put myself, my family, ordinary citizens at risk.”
He promised Judge William Kuntz that he’ll never wind up in a criminal courtroom again. “All I want to do is to try to make up for my wrongs,” he said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Erin Reid pointed out that Abreu’s crime didn’t amount to a one-off incident involving a drug deal in 2016, but rather he helped the drug ring several times, and even traveled to the Dominican Republic in 2020 to hang out with Romero.
“Those betrayals matter,” she said.
Kuntz, who for years sat on the NYPD’s Civilian Complaint Review Board, told Abreu, “The line officers are the most important. They guard us from the evil that lurks in every neighborhood, in every part of our city … Sir, you betrayed that sacred trust.”
He added, “You only shamed yourself, and that is why this is such a very, very sad day.”
Abreu must surrender by Jan. 20 to start his sentence.