Trial of former NYPD detective charged with perjury begins in New York

A disgraced former NYPD detective whose alleged lies led to hundreds of cases being dropped is due to stand trial Wednesday in Manhattan on charges of framing innocent people.

Former narcotics officer Joseph Franco, who was fired by the NYPD in May 2020 following a departmental trial, is facing multiple counts of perjury and misconduct.

More than 400 New Yorkers have seen their convictions read out across the city after allegations arose in 2019 that a former veteran cop who has served in the position for almost 20 years framed them.

The Manhattan prosecutor’s office overturned 170 Franco-related convictions. They plan to focus their case on four incidents involving alleged drug purchases between February 2017 and April 2018, when Franco was working as a plainclothes detective for the South Manhattan narcotics unit. Franco’s description of the events is said to be in stark contrast to the video evidence.

Prosecutors will focus on people who have pleaded guilty to charges they are not guilty of to avoid longer prison sentences. According to court records, they were serving prison terms when the authorities established a rapport.

The perjury allegations relate to Franco’s sworn testimony before a grand jury hearing evidence in the relevant cases.

Franco has been the subject of several lawsuits.

In a lawsuit filed in the Bronx Supreme Court last March, Sterling Medin accused Franco of depriving himself of his livelihood by falsely accusing him of selling drugs during an undercover operation outside his store. Medin pleaded guilty to the criminal sale of a controlled substance in 2013. His conviction was overturned in 2021 when prosecutors checked Franco’s arrests.

In April 2021, the Brooklyn prosecutor’s office asked judges to overturn 90 drug-related convictions in which Franco served as a material witness.

One of them, Raliek Skinner, 35, was among those whose convictions were dropped after it was revealed that his arrest of Franco in 2010 was based on false accusations.

Skinner told the Daily News last year that Franco’s reputation for harassing members of the community where he lived in Gowanus earned him the nickname “Mean Guy.”

Franco pleaded not guilty to all charges. His lawyer did not return a call asking for comment.