NJ cop 'concealed' puppy, sent it to a kill shelter

ATLANTIC CITY - A city police officer once accused of "concealing" a stolen six-week-old puppy taken during a drug raid on a home ultimately tried to rid himself of the "stolen property" by sending the puppy to a kill shelter, according to details released this week from the officer's once-secret internal affairs file.

Detective Glenn Abrams Jr., now a 12-year veteran of the Atlantic City Police Department, took the pit bull puppy named Crystal, tried to hide it from investigators by giving the dog to his mother and finally took the puppy to an animal shelter that puts down unadoptable pets, according to internal police records revealed in a federal court proceeding in Camden.

There is a happy ending for Crystal, though. The puppy was not euthanized and she was reunited with her family three months later.

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The case highlights how rogue cops can skirt the rules and remain on the force – even after repeated investigations into bad behavior. When confidential internal affairs records do become available through court records, they provide a rare insight into how police officers conduct themselves within a system that often turns a blind eye to abuses.

In January, the Asbury Park Press did an investigation into police misconduct. See the video above to hear what one former officer, who worked with the FBI to rid corruption in his department, had to say about internal affairs in New Jersey.

Abrams is a defendant in a federal civil lawsuit for an incident unrelated to the puppy episode. The lawsuit, filed by Steven Stadler, claims Abrams and two other officers used excessive force and violated Stadler's civil rights when they beat him unconscious and sicced a K9 to bite him repeatedly during his 2013 arrest for attempting to rob a coin box at a car wash owned by another city police officer.

Abrams' internal affairs records are under a protective order by the court, but the dog incident is detailed in a motion to introduce his internal affairs history as evidence in the Stadler case.

New Jersey U.S. District Judge Robert B. Kugler ruled the internal affairs findings could be used as evidence, but not the details of the case.

Jennifer Bonjean, Stadler's lawyer, claimed in court documents that the city routinely mislabels civilian complaints against police officers to conceal unconstitutional and illegal conduct.

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The city "purposefully tanks internal affairs investigations to cover up officer misconduct" and "routinely slaps the wrists of officers who should be fired if not indicted for criminal conduct, messaging to the officers that they may behave unconstitutionally and/or unlawfully without fear of losing their jobs or of real discipline," according to the documents.

Bonjean noted that the city's records show that Abrams "has a pattern of

stealing personal items from civilians" and keeping a "massive amount of contraband" in his car.

The city denied the allegations in the Stadler lawsuit and will ask the civil trial jury to dismiss the case. In its motion papers, the city noted that the puppy case has no bearing on the excessive force lawsuit and should be omitted from the trial. The city also noted that Stadler pleaded guilty to resisting arrest in the 2013 case.

Getting Crystal back

Crystal was a six-week-old brindle pit bull that was taken from Maria Mendez and her longtime boyfriend, Antonio Arroyo, in September 2009 during the execution of a search warrant for narcotics, the couple told the Press. They immediately filed an internal affairs complaint with the department in an effort to get their dog back, Arroyo said.

No criminal charges were brought against Abrams, but he was administratively charged with violating standards of conduct and "tampering or fabricating physical evidence" by concealing "stolen property" – the puppy.

In the days after the dog was taken, photos of Crystal with Abrams' girlfriend surfaced on Facebook. But the officer told police he received the puppy from another officer who was with him during the Mendez home search, according to the court records.

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"After the raid, when the officers were leaving, one of the officers took the dog," Arroyo said. "My (girlfriend) ran outside screaming, 'Where's my dog? Where's my dog?' He laughed at her."

Abrams at the time said he didn't know the dog belong to Mendez until after the internal affairs investigation was initiated. But even after he found out, Abrams hid the puppy at his mother's home in Margate, a town just south of Atlantic City, and then brought it to a shelter where it was at risk to be euthanized, according to the federal court records.

One officer said he found the dog wandering outside the Mendez home, but several other officers at the scene reported seeing him holding the puppy inside the house and putting it in his police car, according to the internal affairs records noted in the motion.

"The dog was in a metal kennel – like a cage – and it had two latches on it," Arroyo told the Press. "Our puppy, that could barely walk, did not get out of that cage."

It took the couple three months to get their dog back, but not before taking a trip to Camden to fetch DNA from the parents of the dog to prove it belonged to them, Arroyo said.

"I went through hell with all this," Mendez said. "This gives me the chills to think about. It was all a big coverup."

Abrams makes $98,841 per year. He's the son of former Atlantic City Police Capt. Glenn Abrams, who retired in 2014.

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An excerpt of the investigation filed in the federal court record said Abrams' conduct "violated the law of the state of New Jersey" and the rules and regulations of the Atlantic City Police Department by actively attempting to conceal "stolen property" when he took the puppy to his mother's house.

Abrams was found by city investigators to have been "untruthful concerning the health of the puppy, his knowledge on an investigation regarding the puppy, and his knowledge that the puppy was stolen," the internal affairs excerpt stated.

Abrams accepted a 90-day suspension and asked the city to drop the "untruthfulness" finding, and it complied. The documents didn't indicate whether his suspension was with or without pay.

Off the hook

During the course of the internal affairs investigation into the puppy case, the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office impounded Abrams' police vehicle. Their search found:

Multiple bags of marijuana.

An oxycodone pill bottle prescribed to a Michael Cox.

Several pill bottles prescribed to a Ricardo Harris.

A black bag containing three pairs of brass knuckles, four folding knives, a flashlight labeled "Abrams," a .40 caliber Glock handgun with a 15-round magazine and 15 Speer hollow-point bullets.

Abrams told investigators back then that he failed to inventory the items, but interviews with individuals who owned the items reported that he and other officers had "stolen" them, according to the motion.

He received a sustained finding on his internal affairs record for "neglect of duty," but testified in a deposition for the Stadler case that he never received discipline for that charge.

Internal affairs matters that could potentially be criminal must be investigated by the county prosecutor's office, according to state attorney general's guidelines.

Before Abrams was interviewed by the prosecutor's office about the contraband found in his car, he was given immunity from criminal prosecution, records show.

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Abrams triggered the department's early warning system in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012, but never received additional monitoring, training, supervision or reassignment as a result, according to the motion. An early warning system tracks indicators like use of force reports and internal affairs complaints to flag officers when they reach a certain number in a period of time.

From 2007 to 2013, there was an "overwhelming" number of excessive force cases against Abrams, records show.

Court records and testimony stated that eight of those complaints showed Abrams has a pattern of surprising suspects without identifying himself as a police officer and then physically assaulting them.

Court records also reveal a 2012 incident that triggered an internal affairs investigation against Abrams for "performance of duty" after just 2,967 out of 3,024 paper folds of heroin he recovered from a search warrant made it to a state police lab.

The incident was investigated as an administrative issue rather than a crime, even though a "significant portion" of Abrams' internal affairs complaints involve allegations of theft, the motion said.

Below is the motion to introduce Abrams' internal affairs history as evidence in Stadler vs. Abrams et al, and the city's response.

Kala Kachmar: @NewsQuip; 732-643-4061; kkachmar@app.com