He’sꦡ not the best cop — but that doesn’t mean he’s guilty of robbery and transporting drugs🎉.
That’s what lawyers for Jose Ramos — the NYPD cop who spurred the probe into the department-wide ticket-fixing scandal — told a Bron💝x jury Wednesday during opening statements at his criminal trial.
Ramos, 48, a 17-year NYPD veteran, was un൲der investigation in 2008 for allegedly running a drug trade out of his barbershop when cops overheard him on wiretaps discussing t🌊icket fixing.
“This is not a c🥃ase of whether Jose Ramos was a good cop or☂ a bad cop.
I’ll tell you right now, he wasn’t a great cop,” hꦅis lawyer Matthew Kluger bluntly stated bluntly in op▨ening arguments.
“But that’s not what we’re here to꧂ decide. He even abused his badge from time to time … (but) he did not knowingly transport drugs from the Bronx to Brooklyn,”🎃 Kluger said.
Prosecutors said Ramos failed “integrity tests” each time inv🃏eꦇstigators sent him up to pick up drugs.
“He didn’t fail because🐻 he didn’t know the law — He did. He failed because he thought he was abovജe the law,” said prosecutor Omer Wiczyk.
“He’s guilty as the day is long.”
Ramos — who had been under investigation for the drug trade — was also caught on wiretaps discussing ticket fixing with pal Harry M🧸ingo, who was a police informant𝔍.
The tix-fix probe eventually led to the arrest of 16 NYPD cops in 2012. Ramos is separately charged with trying to hire a hitman in 2012 to💃 kill Mingo — all while locked up at Riker’s Island.
L🐭ead Internal Affairs Bureau investigator Det. Randy Kaꦦtakofsky will continue testifying against Ramos Thursday.
Earlier Wednesday, Katakofsky wrapped up testimony in another Bronx case, against Lt. Jennarꦐa Cobb💧, who is charged with leaking information about the IAB investigation into ticket fixing to colleagues.
Defense attorneys accuse☂d Katakofsky of inadvertently tipping Cobb off to the wiretaps in an unrecorded conversation — then trying to cover the slip-up by saying he was really trying to expose her the source of the leak.