NEW YORK – NYPD’S 2012 Officer Of The Year will be sentenced in June after he plead guilty last week to conspiring to possess with intent to distribute 11 pounds of cocaine.
Former police officer Phillip Leroy, 28, of Queens, New York, is facing 10 years to life in prison.
Here are the facts surrounding this case:
- Beginning in November 2014, an undercover officer engaged in a series of telephone conversations with co-defendant Richard Quintanilla to arrange the sale of 22 pounds of cocaine to Leroy and co-defendant Brian Espinal, in exchange for $200,000.
- On November 30, 2014, Leroy and Espinal drove from New York to South Florida, and on December 1, 2014, Leroy, Espinal and Quintanilla met with the undercover officer in order to facilitate the drug transaction.
- At the meeting location, Leroy and Espinal got about $200,000 from the back of their vehicle and provided it to the undercover officer in exchange for the cocaine.
- Leroy and Espinal then concealed the cocaine inside a hidden compartment located in the center console of their vehicle.
- As Leroy and Espinal prepared to leave the scene, they were apprehended.
- A loaded, 9 mm handgun, with one round in the chamber, was recovered underneath Leroy’s seat. The firearm was Leroy’s off-duty service revolver. Leroy admitted that he accompanied Espinal to Florida in order to purchase multiple kilograms of cocaine that they intended to transport back to New York.
Leroy’s co-conspirators, Brian Espinal and Richard Quintanilla, previously pled guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 11 pounds or more of cocaine and are scheduled to be sentenced on May 15 and 18, 2014, respectively.