An NYPD officer has been convicted of lying about a 2014 arrest in Washington Heights.
Jonathan Munoz was found guilty of all counts in the indictment against him, including two counts each of offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree and official misconduct, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance announced Thursday.
The 33-year-old cop unlawfully arrested a man and illegally searched a woman in addition to filing false documents to conceal the circumstances of the man’s arrest.
“Police officers have one of the most difficult and dangerous jobs in the world, and they are tasked with carrying out their sworn duty to protect with the utmost honesty and integrity,” said Vance.
“These tenets are critical to maintaining public confidence in law enforcement authorities and our criminal justice system as a whole.”
While on patrol, Munoz arrested a 21-year-old man near West 183rd Street and St. Nicholas Avenue March 12, 2014, authorities said.
The Suffern resident told his NYPD supervisors and the assistant district attorneys screening the case that he arrested the man for interfering in the search and investigation of a 20-year-old woman he suspected purchased marijuana.
Officials said he claimed in statements and paperwork that the man was poised in a “fighting stance,” as if to attack him, before he lunged and swung a fist at him. However, surveillance video showed that the man never attacked Munoz, and that the cop in fact unlawfully searched the woman as she stood on the sidewalk.
Authorities said Munoz joined the NYPD in 2006. He’s expected to be sentenced May 9.
