Mount Vernon Police Department Scandals

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Hi, I'm retired NYPD detective Vic Ferrari and welcome to NYPD Through the Looking Glass podcast, where you'll get unique insight into the New York City Police Department. Before we get started, I encourage you to check out my Amazon author page where you'll find my series of behind-the-scenes NYPD books. They're$10 paperback or$2.99 ebook download, including my latest NYPD behind the blue wall of silence. This is kind of going to be a mini episode for you guys today. If all goes well Friday, I'll be able to drop an interview with U.S. uh retired U.S. Customs agent Chris Hasting. He was working in Miami during the cocaine cowboys era. He was involved in two huge money laundering cases, including Operation Sea Chase and Operation Greenback. He lives in the Philippines, so I'm going to be interviewing him Thursday night at 10 o'clock. So hopefully technology and everything works out, and I'll be able to drop a second episode this week. So there's a couple of things in the news this week that were newsworthy, police related. So I figured I would drop an episode. A Mount Vernon police officer is facing felony charges after prosecutors say he attempted to deposit a stolen check worth more than$800,000. Brandon Hunter Carney, three names, who joined the Mount Vernon Police Department in December of 2023, was arraigned Wednesday on a charge of criminal possession of stolen property second degree. According to prosecutors, Hunter Carney allegedly stole a check made out to an Alabama-based company, Electric Control Systems, Inc. investigators say then he cre Investigators say he then created a New York business with the same name, listing himself as the sole officer, and attempted to deposit the check. The defendant was not a victim of identity theft, but in fact a participant, assistant district attorney John Wasak, Wazak, Wizak, said in court. Prosecutors requested time to present the case to a grand jury. Residents say the arrest adds to growing concerns coming just weeks after another Mount Vernon police officer was charged in a separate case. Police officials note that in both cases the alleged crimes occurred before the officers joined the department. You got some serious problems in Mount Vernon, but let's start with this guy. What a mama luke. I mean, how do you deposit a check worth of$800,000? It's stolen, and you don't think you're going to get caught. That is really, I mean, that is a pert mentality. You're not going to get away with that. I mean, you open up a bank account, they want your driver's license, your social security number. How stupid can you be? But Hunter Carney was released on his own reconnaissance and is currently suspended without pay. I was just talking to a buddy of mine who told me a kind of a similar story about a cop that we both know. And what this guy did was in the NYPD, you can take what's called a pension loan. So you're putting money in your pension system, you know, throughout your career. And like a house, you put equity in it. And if you want to borrow money, and a lot of times cops will do that for home improvement loans, for closing costs, races for the kids, whatever. It's it's their money. And the beauty of it is you take out that pension loan and then you pay it back with interest. So you're basically paying yourself back. Now, sometimes you take out a pension loan and you can retire, but there's a shortage. And actually, I had taken out a pension loan and I wanted to know how much I owed. And it was about five grand before I retired. And I go, Oh, well, you don't have to pay that back. I'm like, no, no, no, I'm gonna pay that back. I want everything I put in in there. But anyway, this guy took out a pension loan, got the check and deposits it. And somehow, some way there was a glitch in the system, the pension section issues him a second check, probably for the same amount. Instead of taking the check and saying calling them up and going, Hey, you know, I I I took out a pension loan for five or ten thousand dollars, you sent me another check. What do you want me to do with this thing? He deposited the check and hoped for the best. Well, not long after they got in touch with him and it was a thing, but union's not gonna press charges on another cop, and he pled stupidity and kind of went away. But obviously, if I know the story, everybody in his st in the station house knows about the story. So you can't deposit a check that doesn't belong to you. It's just gonna raise flags. And I'd love to know this guy's background before the Mount Vernon police department hired him, but we're gonna get into that. But here's the second story of another Mount Vernon cop who got collared last week. A newly promoted Westchester detective named Kyron Bronskill, 34 years old, was arrested and charged with part of an 18-person indictment for allegedly funneling guns to members and associates of the notorious 48 gang on Long Island. The guns were used in a string of murders, robberies, and other violent crimes. According to prosecutors, Bronskill allegedly sold a 9mm Ruga pistol to a high-ranking member of the 48 gang in 2021. Prior to being hired by the Mount Vernon Police Department, he was reportedly on the New York State D certification list for law enforcement officers. That means they take away your certification. The disgraced cop had been terminated while serving as a probationary corrections officer in 2020, according to this New York State Department of Corrections and community supervision. I know I'm gonna sound like an old man, but in my day, you had to be squeaky clean to get hired by any police department. And if you got fired by one or by the Department of Corrections, no one was gonna touch you. So it kind of goes to show you how A, they've lowered the standards, and B, no one wants these jobs anymore that they're hiring these guys. Mount Vernon Police Department has got some serious problems, and it goes back a long way. I'm sure there's a lot of great cops that work in that department. I know a guy that left. He had all sorts of crazy stories about that place. But I just I just was talking about this a couple of months ago. Chase Lackard, the son of Mount Vernon Deputy Police Commissioner Jennifer Lackard, was arrested following an officer-involved shooting in the Bronx. The event occurred when police responded to a fight involving a gun at Sevenson Commons. So her son gets involved in something. And Mount Vernon is a very small police department. It's only got about 165 uh sworn up um sworn officers. And uh when I worked in the 5-0 precinct, now this is going back 35 years ago, I worked with a cop in the 5-0 who grew up in Mount Vernon. His father was a supervisor on the Mount Vernon police department. And I remember like we, you know, I got along with this guy very well, and I would work with him like when his partner took off or my partner was on vacation. I remember asking him one time, like, you know, your dad's a supervisor there. And I guess he was getting set to retire. And I said, you know, you grew up in Mount Vernon. Why didn't you take the job in Mount Vernon? He goes, My old man wouldn't let me. He said, There's just too much going on here. He didn't really get into it. But, you know, you kind of read between the lines. And the other guy that I knew, he worked in Mount Vernon. I believe he got promoted as supervisor there and started uncovering some stuff, if memory serves me correctly. And he was like, you know what? I just want to get out of here. And then he went and worked for another agency. And then later on, my office did a joint case with his office. And I remember a couple of times when dealing with the Mount Vernon Police Department, he was like, just be careful, don't say anything you shouldn't say, don't share anything you shouldn't um share. There's some stuff going on in there. To add to this, and this is in the news, in 2024, the Westchester County DA's office vacated or throughout 26 convictions linked to dirty cops involved in planning drugs, starting drug operations, pulse arrests, and beatings in the Mount Vernon Police Department. Now, don't get me wrong, the NYPD is far from squeaky clean, but you only have 165 cops here, and you got two collard in in in in within a week for different things. So they they better get their house in order. This is a really sad story. The Bronx judge under fire for sentencing an ex-NYPD sergeant to at least three years behind bars, once offered a sweetheart deal to an alleged gang member who beat a homeless man to death. When Manhattan judge, Justice Guy Mitchell in 2018 served up what amounted to be nine months in prison for 19-year-old Branley Gonzalez who pleaded guilty to manslaughter and attempted assault. Gonzalez relentlessly pummeled Lucio Bravo, 69 years old, on May 18, 2017, after the elderly man allegedly catcalled a loved one in Washington Heights. Bravo slipped into a coma while another victim suffered minor injuries. Judge Miss Mitchell is facing another fire storm now for sentencing NYPD sergeant Eric Duran to three to nine years in prison last Thursday for fatally throwing a picnic cooler at a moped fleeing drug suspect, Eric Dupree, in August of 2023. The judge had sentenced Duran, 38 years old, to manslaughter, which carries a possible penalty from probation to up to 15 years behind bars. Duran was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter last week at a non-jury trial before Judge Guy Mitchell in the freak death of 30-year-old Eric Dupree during an undercover buy and bust operation. According to police, Dupree tried to flee the scene in Kingsbridge on August 23rd by hopping on a scooter to get away. Durant picked up a cooler and threw it at him. The cooler struck Dupree in the head, causing a fatal wreck. In the prior controversial case, Mitchell then serving as a Manhattan Supreme Court judge, even floated the possibility of giving Gonzalez zero jail time, but then changed his mind when the New York Post began covering the story. Of course he did. Manhattan prosecutors had called on Gonzalez to get at least 10 years, alleging he was a victim of the Guerrilla Stones gang, whoever they are. The victim's grieving daughter also demanded a pr stiff prison sentence. Sergeant Duran, a 38-year-old married father of three, was a 13-year veteran with a distinguished career record before the freak mishap that ended up with the sentence of a three to nine year prison sentence. The NYPD rank and file cops and his union rep rallied behind Duran to no avail. Even a petition signed by 11,000 NYPD cops asking the judge to receive probation instead of prison time did not sway the judge. Now get this. The judge called his sentence the darkest day in the history of our profession. Give me a break. He justified the sentence in part by saying it would serve as a general deterrent for police officers. It's not going to serve as a general deterrent for police officers. That's telling cops, don't do your job. Why should I chase this guy? And if something happens to him and gets hurt or gets killed, I'm going to wind up going to jail for three to nine years. That's not what that is. And let me tell you something else about this judge. He was in Manhattan, which is very that's a prestigious bench seat. The fact that he wound up in the Bronx tells you something. Republican gubernarial candidate Bruce Blakeman vowed to immediately pardon the jail sergeant if he's elected to governor November. Well, you hope. Blakeman, who is now serving as a NASA County executive, said Sergeant Duran, who was sentenced to the last three years, who was sentenced to at least three years in prison for hurling the cooler, doesn't belong behind bars. And no, he doesn't. The guy was doing his job. I watched the video. The guy takes off on the scooter. He just takes the cooler and chucks it at him, hoping the weight of the cooler will push him off the moped down with the weight. What winds up happening is the scooter goes down and he and he hits a tree, which probably broke his neck or gave him really bad head injury. It's not his fault. Why flee from the police? All you got to do is stop. I don't know why. Here's a funny thing. Why do perps run these days in New York? You know you're gonna get out. Nothing's gonna happen to you. They're letting people, there's no cash bail. These judges are throwing these cases out, they're giving out lenient sentences. I don't get why the perps are running. They should just stop. It would save everybody the trouble. You know, again, I sound like the old man, but during my time, I've seen radios, Snapple bottles, anything you can think of, throwing it fleeing felons when you know they're not gonna stop, and you just stop, stop, just pick something up and throw it at them. But I guess those days are over. It's sad because the more these cases keep, and you know what? It's the lawyer's fault. You got too many lawyers filing these bullshit lawsuits, and it just and now it's that's all that's going on to the benches and these things. It's just it's just a shit show. And I'm I really feel really bad for this Sergeant Duran. Looks like a nice enough guy, and he's gonna get screwed. In lighter news, a Hawaiian jury has ruled anesthesiologist Gerhard Cohen is guilty of trying to push his wife off a cliff in March of 2025. Kohen was convicted of attempted manslaughter based on extreme mental Koening was convicted of attempted manslaughter based upon extreme mental or emotional disturbance, carries a sentence of twenty years. Koening was convicted Wednesday, April 8th, more than a year after his wife, Ariel Cohen, alleged he tried to kill her. Gerhard had testified he attacked Ariel in self-defense, so this jerkov takes the stand. Ariel claimed that Gerhard tried to pull her off the edge of a cliff before. Ariel claimed her husband Gerhard tried to pull her off the edge of a cliff before trying to inject her with an unknown substance and eventually bashing her head in with a rock. Gerhard fled the scene when two hikers heard Ariel screams for help and call 911. What a crazy story. You think everybody's living in paradise in Hawaii, and you got first off, I wouldn't trust anybody named Gerhard. But here's a crazy thing. During the course of my life, I've known two anesthesiologist nurses. Both were mentally unstable, and I wouldn't trust them putting me to sleep or waking me up. Both were nuts. Brian Hooker grinned at photographers as he left a police station in the Bahamas, after cops declined to charge him in connection with the disappearance of his wife Lynette. The Michigan boater wearing a white polo t-shirt appeared relaxed as he left the central police station in the Bahama Capitol of Freeport on Monday night. Hooker, fifty-nine years old, stonewalled questions about jail conditions and refused to issue a message for his missing wife, who disappeared on April 4th. It remains to be seen whether he can leave the Bahamas amid the ongoing search or whether he will be rearrested. Hooker told police that his wife fell off a small dinghy as the couple returned from their yacht, the soulmate, claimed she had the dinghy key on her when she fell, which cut off the motor, forcing him to paddle back to shore after his wife was swept away by strong currents. What is it with these people that come up with creative ways to bump off their significant other? Don't these people watch Dateline? At some point, you're gonna be on one of these shows in a jail cell. But I don't get it. And I I s, you know, he I saw photos and I watched a couple of videos of it. He doesn't look too concerned. So anyway, I will have another. Hopefully, like I said, if all goes well, I'll have another episode up next week. And as always, I want to thank everyone for tuning in, especially my listeners in Newport News, Virginia, Mesa, Arizona, Weir, New Hampshire, Poughkeepsie, New York, Weston, Ontario, and Kalua, Kalawaia, Hawaii. If you worked in law enforcement or had an interesting criminal background, please drop me a note on Twitter or Instagram at VicFerrari50. If you're watching on YouTube, please hit the like, subscribe, or hype buttons. If you enjoy my content, please check out my Amazon author page. Type in my name, Vic Ferrari, like the car, where you can preview all my NYPD, where you can preview all my NYPD books for free. Thanks again, everyone, and I'll talk to you soon.