NYC cop indicted on charges he lied in drug arrests

A New York City police detective was indicted Wednesday on charges he lied under oath about drug arrests he made in July 2009, prosecutors said, leading to the dismissal of charges against two men found with two bricks of cocaine in a duffel bag.

Said Salim, 42, a firearms detective with the NYPD, lied under oath on "multiple occasions" about the arrests of two men in Manhattan without probable cause, according to a news release from the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.

According to the indictment, Salim arrested the men with a duffel bag holding more than 2 kilograms of cocaine. The detective later testified before a grand jury and at a suppression hearing in New York State Supreme Court, the DA's office said, that he stopped them because one looked like a confidential informant.

He also testified more than once that after realizing that one of the men wasn't a confidential informant, he told them to leave and take the duffel bag with them -- then testified that after each of the men denied the bag was his, Salim searched the bag and found the cocaine.

An investigation by the DA's office and the police department's Internal Affairs Bureau revealed Salim stopped and arrested the two men "without probable cause before unlawfully searching the duffel bag in which he discovered the cocaine," according to the release.

"Dishonesty from a member of the law enforcement community is detrimental, not only to the rights of defendants, but to the reputation of all law enforcement in the communities we serve," Vance said in the statement.

As a result of the false testimony, the case against the two men was dismissed.

Information about whether other cases handled by Salim were affected was not available.

The NYPD released a statement saying Salim had been arrested about 7 a.m. Wednesday.

Salim is charged with two counts of first-degree perjury, first-degree offering a false instrument for filing, making a punishable false written statement and official misconduct.