Weepy ex-NYPD officer gets 8 years in federal prison in bribery, drug schemes

A weepy ex-NYPD officer who pleaded guilty to bribery and drug transportation charges was sentenced to eight years in prison Wednesday — and his lawyer expects he’ll have a tough time behind bars.

Robert Smith “will be entering the Bureau of Prisons with two targets on his head: he’s a cop, and he’s a rat,” the lawyer, Andrew Frisch, wrote in court papers.

The teary-eyed former cop said he was repentant and deserved his incarceratory fate Wednesday in front of Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Rachel Kovner.

“I did wrong. I had no excuses for what I’ve done,” said Smith as his voice broke in court. “I know I’ve done wrong and I know I deserve to go to prison.”

Smith, 45, accepted $20,000 in bribes in a scam in which he and two other officers directed car crash victims to a specific tow truck company in exchange for cash from the companies, in violation of NYPD protocols.

The officers also stole crash victim information and fed it to third parties to be sold to physical therapy businesses.

He also agreed to transport narcotics for a drug trafficking organization while carrying a gun following his retirement from the force.

Smith was busted in 2021 along with NYPD officers Robert Hassett and Heather Busch.

Unlike the other two suspects, Smith was outed by the feds as a belligerent racist who randomly pointed his gun at Black passersby just to enjoy the look on their faces.

“Bro I point my gun out the window now at n-----s and watch their reaction and drive way,” the then-retired officer allegedly wrote in a text message cited by federal prosecutors in the case. “Hilarious.”

Charges against Smith to the NYPD Civilian Complaint Review Board while he was an officer accused him of repeatedly making racist comments, including one 2014 case in which he allegedly called a driver an “animal,” a “crazy monkey,” and telling the man to “go suck a c—k,” records separate from his court case show.

Only one of the 33 civilian complaints against Smith were substantiated.

Hassett, Busch and Smith carried out their scheme while they were on duty. Smith allegedly created the kickback setup in 2016 and later recruited Hassett and Busch into it. Busch was sentenced to six months in prison, and Hassett is awaiting sentencing.

In 2020, after he retired from the NYPD, Smith met with someone he thought was a drug trafficker and took a bag “containing what Smith understood to be a kilogram of heroin,” prosecutors said. He took the bag to another person and was given $1,200 in cash for his work.

Smith, who once called himself “one of the most corrupt cops in the 105″ precinct in Queens, quickly turned snitch after his arrest, his lawyer says.

Smith met twice with the feds, admitting to his role in the crimes but also spilling on NYPD corruption, disclosing “wrongdoing of colleagues and friends.”

The feds admitted at the sentencing that Smith’s “unsuccessful efforts” to report on corruption were genuine.

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