Officer Jose Ortiz Arrested by FBI

Jose Ortiz, a 20-year Boston Police officer has been arrested by the FBI.

The case against Ortiz begun on August 30, 2006, when the cop was caught on a security tape coming into a Boston business. He told the victim that he worked for the ‘Colombian people’ who wanted the victim to pay off an alleged drug debt of $260,000. He told the victim he would kill him and his family if he didn’t corporate. Instead the victim reported the incident to the authorities. For the next few months the victim gave Officer Ortiz thousands of dollars while he was in uniform.

When the FBI went to arrest Ortiz he began screaming, "I'm a cop!" as he was forced to his knees, his hands in the air. The FBI agents cuffed him and pushed him down onto the pavement. Ortiz tried again: "I'm a cop!" But this time, for the first time, that would not be enough to help him get off easy.

After Ortiz went down, Ed Davis joined Lieutenant Detective Frank Mancini, the arresting officer from the anti-corruption unit, in the room where Ortiz was being questioned and booked. For a minute or so, Davis glared at the disgraced cop in his BPD blues. Then he tore the badge off Ortiz's chest, snapping, "You are no longer a Boston police officer. You don't deserve to wear this."

But Davis now admits that Ortiz should have had his badge confiscated long before that day. Prior to his arrest, Ortiz had been suspended from the force six different times, for offenses that included swearing at a commanding officer, lying on police reports, double dipping into overtime, and stealing a sheet from a fellow officer's citation book to write a bothersome neighbor an illegal ticket. Yet for all these violations, Ortiz was never severely punished. The most serious disciplinary action he received was for forging detail slips, for which he got a 70-day unpaid suspension. And even then he served only 20 days.

Worse still, even if everything the FBI says is true, Ortiz is far from the only strike against the BPD, which has seen its reputation sullied by a string of recent scandals: Officer Edgardo Rodriguez pleads guilty to lying to a federal grand jury and distributing steroids. Officer Paul Durkin shoots a cop buddy who tried to take his keys after a night of drinking, and is forced to resign. In January, veteran officer Michael T. Jones is arrested for allegedly robbing a Roslindale gas station at gunpoint. The next month, detective Kevin Guy, a longtime narcotics cop, is hit with a 45-day suspension after testing positive for steroids. Two officers, Windell Josey, who worked with domestic violence victims, and David Murphy, are nabbed by other police departments—one in Randolph and one in Baltimore, Maryland—for allegedly assaulting their girlfriends. At the department's Hyde Park evidence warehouse, a facility only cops are allowed into, a probe finds that drugs from nearly 1,000 cases spanning 16 years have been stolen or improperly discarded.

Now, many law enforcement officials are bracing for the final sentencing hearing for a group of disgraced cops known in the department as "the Three Amigos." All three officers pleaded guilty to drug possession and trafficking charges. One of them, Carlos Pizarro, was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison in December. Another, Nelson Carrasquillo, was sentenced to 18 years last month. According to court documents, the suspected ringleader, Roberto Pulido, was also accused of (though never charged with) involvement in an identity fraud ring and helping to run an illegal after-hours club in Hyde Park, where strippers would perform lap dances for cops in a closed area called "the Boom-Boom Room." He is likely to receive his term in the coming months.

Meanwhile, even more sordid revelations may soon emerge. Pulido's 2002 shooting at the hands of a shadowy assailant will also be reviewed. And the U.S. Attorney's Office has initiated an investigation into allegations of widespread steroid abuse in the BPD.

Back in 2001, Commissioner Paul Evans walked into the District E-13 station house in Jamaica Plain for roll call and presented three awards for exemplary conduct. All three went to the same cop. According to one of the citations, which commended the officer for chasing down and apprehending a robber on Tremont Street, his actions were "indicative of the outstanding professionalism he displays no matter where or when called upon to perform his oath of office." That officer was Roberto Pulido.

Pulido, of course, would later become notorious for allegedly running a series of criminal enterprises that included selling steroids, protecting drug dealers, stealing motorists' identities, and helping manage the Boom-Boom Room in the illegal nightclub not far from the mayor's Hyde Park home. That all this culminated in the biggest BPD scandal in memory is well known. But now even an incident for which Pulido was lauded is getting another look.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John McNeil has issued subpoenas to up to a dozen Boston police officers to appear in front of a grand jury convened to hear evidence on steroid abuse in the BPD. According to a source, three officers, one of them a homicide detective, were transferred after receiving their subpoenas. Two BPD sources, including one with direct knowledge of the investigation, confirmed the ongoing grand jury—where what went on in Pulido's Boom-Boom Room is also likely to be reexamined. And the fact that Pulido's sentencing, originally slated for February, has been pushed back is causing some in the department to wonder whether he is giving up other officers in return for a reduced punishment.