NEW YORK CITY — A former New
York City cop was sentenced to 46 months in prison for plotting to transport
firearms and other contraband across state lines,Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet
Bharara announced Thursday.
While an active officer in the
NYPD's Brooklyn South Task Force, Ali Oklu hatched a scheme to illegally
transport three M-16 rifles, one shotgun and 16 handguns across state lines
between September 2010 and October 2011, according to court filings and
statements made in court. He also helped transport slot machines from Atlantic
City and thousands of cartons of cigarettes from Virginia, all of which he
believed to be stolen, according to the filings.
Oklu, 36, of Sunnyside, Queens,
was paid $35,000 for his role in smuggling the goods, which carried a street
value of about $1 million, according to court documents.
Oklu and his co-conspirators,
including other police officers, used their law enforcement credentials to help
expedite the crimes, authorities said. In a March 2011 meeting with the
scheme’s alleged ringleader, officer William Masso, the two conspired to carry
their badges and tell anyone that questioned them that they were officers
carrying items to be sold at police auction, according to the filings.
Oklu pleaded guilty in December
to working with Masso and 11 other co-conspirators to carry out the scheme,
court documents show.
“Ali Oklu betrayed the NYPD and
the fine men and women who serve there so honorably, even going so far as to
conspire to bring firearms into New York where his brother and sister officers
— as far as he knew — might have been potentially in the firing line,” Bharara
said in a statement. “With his sentence today, he will now be punished for his
crimes.”
In addition to the prison
sentence, U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley also imposed three years
supervised release, a $7,500 fine and a $200 special assessment fee, as well as
a forfeiture of the $35,000 Oklu made in committing the crimes.