Investigation Reveals Drugs in Stolen Car Linked to NYC Correction Department Officer: NYPD

An investigator in a city Correction Department unit that probes jailhouse drug smuggling and other misconduct by correction officers was arrested in a stolen car with baggies of cocaine in its center console and heroin in her purse, the Daily News has learned. Anna Farias, 31, who was hired to work in the department’s Investigations Division on May 30, was pulled over by 105th Precinct officers on Nov. 10 at 147th Ave. and 223rd St. in Brookville, Queens, a neighborhood near Kennedy Airport. Cops made the stop after they noticed her 2022 Mercedes-Benz’s rear license plate was obscured by a frame, court records show. After Farias consented to a search of the vehicle, officers found three baggies of cocaine in the car’s center console and six glassine envelopes of heroin in Farias’ purse, say the records. The officers soon realized the Mercedes-Benz, which had Connecticut plates, was reported stolen on March 8, say the court papers. One clue was that the Mercedes had a forged vehicle identification number sticker on the windshield and a phony federal inspection sticker covering the actual VIN number on the inside rim of the driver’s door, the records show.

One of the arresting officers was able to peel away the inspection sticker — something that would not be possible with a real one, the court record states. The Correction Department will move to fire her when the suspension ends, he said. Farias was assigned to the Investigation Division unit that probes correction officers’ use of force, officials said. An investigation is continuing. Marc Laykind, Farias’ defense lawyer, said his client had no knowledge of the drugs or that the car was stolen. “The car is not registered to her, not owned by her, there is no connection to her at all and she had no knowledge of what was inside the car. She was in temporary possession of the vehicle,” Laykind said.

Correction staff have been found in the past to bring contraband to city jails. In one recent case, ex-correction officer Krystle Burrell was sentenced Tuesday to 29 months in federal prison for taking bribes to smuggle drugs and phones into the now-closed Anna M. Kross Center on Rikers Island. On April 2, the then-deputy commissioner of Investigations Manuel Hernandez resigned after a court-appointed monitor tracking violence in city jails reported that staff were being pressured to take it easy on cases involving officer misconduct.