NYPD changes policy on federal gun busts after wrong man was arrested
NYPD detectives can no longer pull federal gun suspects out of state custody without clearing it with a supervisor, after a screwup led to the wrong man being arrested last week, the Daily News has learned.
The change in policy was revealed in a court filing Tuesday, after NYPD Detective Debra Lawson of the gun offender monitoring unit took the wrong Andrew Pagan out of Rikers Island to face federal gun and drug charges in Brooklyn.
“In light of this incident, NYPD has informed the government that it will no longer permit its detectives involved in gun-related prosecutions such as this to request the removal of a defendant from state to federal custody without supervisory review and approval,” wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney John Enright, calling the mistake “unacceptable.”
The filing by federal prosecutors also offered more details on how the mixup happened.
The 28-year veteran detective believed — incorrectly, it turned out — that their suspect, Andrew A. Pagan, was in New York State custody in an unrelated gun case.
So she went on the city inmate locator website, not the state’s, found an Andrew Pagan was locked up on Rikers, and figured she had her man, Enright wrote.
That assumption turned out to be wrong, and things got messier from there.
Lawson submitted an arrest warrant, and last Wednesday, she and other law enforcement officers took Pagan to Brooklyn Federal court, where he was arraigned by U.S. Magistrate Judge Vera Scanlon. The judge ordered him detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
After the arraignment, another detective realized they had the wrong Pagan, and Lawson tried to reach Pretrial Services officials and the U.S. marshals, but couldn’t get in contact with them.
On Thursday morning, “in her haste to rectify the mistake, [Lawson] removed Andrew Pagan from federal custody and transported him back to the Rikers Island Correctional Facility,” Enright wrote.
Enright’s filing doesn’t explain how Lawson was able to get Pagan out of the federal jail without a court order. By the time Scanlon signed such an order, Pagan was already removed from the MDC.
The federal Bureau of Prisons did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Police found the correct suspect, Andrew A. Pagan, and brought him before Scanlon Thursday. Despite the detective’s belief, he wasn’t in state custody at all. In fact, he was out on bail in his state gun case.
After his arraignment before Scanlon, Andrew A. Pagan was released on $50,000 bond.
