QUEENS, NY – Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced today that Ishmael Bailey, 38, who resigned from the NYPD after his arrest in 2019, has been indicted by a Queens County grand jury and arraigned in Supreme Court. The defendant is charged in a 13-count indictment with selling and possessing a controlled substance, bribe receiving, conspiracy and other crimes.
District Attorney Katz said, “This defendant, who took an oath to uphold the law, is alleged to have helped protect ‘drug dealers’ and to have personally transported cocaine from various location in Queens in August and September 2019. I would like to thank the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau for their hard work investigating this case.”
Bailey, of Richmond County, NY, was arraigned today before Queens Supreme Court Justice Gary Miret on a 13-count indictment charging him with criminal sale of a controlled substance in the first degree, criminal possession of a controlled substance in the first degree, official misconduct, bribe receiving in the second and third degree and conspiracy in the second and fourth degree. Justice Miret ordered the defendant to return to Court on March 8, 2022. If convicted, Bailey faces up to 15 years in prison.
As alleged in the charges, Bailey on August 27, 2019, met with an individual whom he believed was a drug dealer. This “dealer” was actually an undercover police officer. The pair discussed transporting drugs within Queens County and the defendant allegedly agreed to provide security as the cocaine was being transporting from one point in Queens to another area. For his services, the defendant allegedly agreed to a cash payment for each kilo of cocaine that was securely transported.
Continuing, the DA said, on September 4, 2019, Bailey met with the same “dealer” in Astoria, Queens and allegedly held a duffle bag open as three packages were placed inside. One of the packages was a kilo of cocaine and the other two were fakes. The defendant was given $2,500 and transported the bag to a parking lot in College Point, Queens, where another individual – also an undercover police officer – accepted the bag.
According to the charges the defendant again on September 12, 2019, played the role of security for cash when he met with the same undercover officer in Astoria. This time, Bailey was given $10,000 cash to pick up two kilos of cocaine from a location in Maspeth, Queens. Bailey allegedly met with a second individual at the designated meeting spot and gave both the cash to the individual and retrieved two packages – one package was a kilo of cocaine and the second package was a fake.
The investigation as conducted by the New York City Police Departments Internal Affairs Bureau, under the supervision of Deputy Commissioner Joseph J. Reznick.
Senior Assistant District Attorney Karlton S. Jarrett, of the District Attorney’s Public Corruption Bureau, is prosecuting the case, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys James M. Liander, Bureau Chief, Khadijah Muhammad-Starling, Deputy Chief, Yvonne Francis, Supervisor, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Investigations Gerard Brave.