Cocaine Cop Gets 3 1/2 Years

Scumbag

David Palazzolo, a 20-year veteran of the Town of Poughkeepsie Police Department, will be out of prison in as little as 3 1/2 years under the terms of his plea bargain arrangement. He pled guilty at the Dutchess County Courthouse this morning to three felony counts stemming from what was originally a 35-count indictment.

It was all alleged, and on some counts proven that the officer was guilty of all sorts of criminal acts while wearing a badge, as follows.

The now former police officer used his position to protect two known drug dealers in exchange for cocaine. He tipped them off to investigations being conducted, where and when surveillance was being carried out, and even identified undercover narcotics officers and the vehicles they were driving. He illegally accessed the department's computers numerous times in order to glean this information, which he shared with the cocaine kingpins. It was also alleged that he threatened to murder a man who was being held in a jail cell, if the man spoke to investigators about the drug dealers Palazzolo was protecting.

Amid the investigation into his activities, the corrupt cop was suspended but then reinstated and worked for another 4 months before finally retiring to North Carolina in November of 2010. He will still collect his pension.

Also charged with drug offenses were his wife Carol, 44, Christopher Reynolds, 49, of the Town of Poughkeepsie and Jesse Roldan, 35, of Wappingers Falls. David Palazzolo remains free on $100,000 bond pending sentencing on December 1, when he will begins serving 3 1/2 to 10 1/2 years in state prison.

Now I am no expert, but it seems to me that if the shoe was on the other foot so to speak, if it had been a civilian facing these sort of accusations, they would have wound up in prison for a lot longer. Threatening to kill a cop alone would probably be enough to invoke a stiff prison sentence. Not to mention compromising police investigations, tampering with witnesses, bribery, bartering with large amounts of cocaine, and so forth. I have seen numerous cases where someone caught with a small amount of cocaine faces much more prison time. Once again we see that there are two sets of law in this country. One code for police, and another for us, the second-rate citizens. Once again the Dutchess County DA's office proves their incompetence as well. 







.