The NYPD's narcotics divisions are infested with rogues

NYPD officer snared in a drug scandal took a plea Thursday and started dishing dirt about other corrupt cops, sources said. Police officer Jerry Bowens, 42, accepted the deal yesterday in a closed Brooklyn courtroom, police and law enforcement sources said. The 13-year veteran was indicted in June as part of a corruption probe into the Brooklyn South narcotics squad. "It was a pretty dirty place, with a lot of cops doing lots of things, and he knows about it," a law enforcement source said.

Bowens, lawyer Edward Mandery and prosecutors were behind closed doors for about 20 minutes in Brooklyn Supreme Court. Details of the plea were not made public. Bowens and Sgt. Michael Arenella, 32, were charged last year with stealing crack off a drug suspect and giving cash and crack to an informant. The "suspect" was an undercover NYPD officer running a sting. "Sgt. Arenella did nothing wrong," insisted his lawyer, Andrew Quinn, yesterday. Bowens was accused of having sex with, and giving drugs to, an informant who told the NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau.

Bowens and four other cops were arrested, another 15 officers were put on desk duty during the probe, and NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly reshuffled the command of Brooklyn South. The Brooklyn District Attorney's office reviewed 500 Brooklyn South drug cases after the scandal broke. Charges in one of Bowens' arrests were dismissed last year, with the city agreeing to pay $80,000 to two defendants arrested in 2007. "The city is under a moral obligation to compensate the innocent victims of rogue police officers," said Richard Cardinale, lawyer for the two men. "The NYPD's narcotics divisions are infested with rogues."