By Chelsia Rose Marcius
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — Maybe next time they’ll just park in the back.
Four city Department of Correction officers and a fifth person were indicted on felony charges Tuesday for forging city disability parking placards.
The correction officers — Nakia Gales, 44, Shyiera Daniels, 29, Judy Guity, 46, and Rasma Caines, 43 — as well as Craig Scott, 60, were charged in the Bronx with second-degree and third-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, prosecutors said.
Gales sold the forged placards for $200 to $280 a pop, a Department of Investigation probe found. All five of the defendants had the placards in their vehicles.
The accused fraudsters were arraigned Tuesday before Bronx Supreme Court Judge Robert Neary and released without bail.
“Members of our community with severe disabilities need these placards to enable them to park near their place of work, doctor’s office and other essential places so they can go about their lives more easily,” said Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark. “The defendants ... allegedly corrupted the placard program for their own convenience.”
“The city correction officers charged in today’s indictment ...[were] abusing a program that is meant to aid New Yorkers with disabilities,” said Department of Investigation Commissioner Margaret Garnett.
“Distributing or using fraudulent parking placards is corruption — plain and simple — and city employees who attempt to profit from this conduct, whether monetarily or through other benefits, will be held accountable.”
All five defendants are due back in court on March 16.
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