Pubdate: Wed, 07 May 2003
Source: Newsday (NY)
Section: LI News
Copyright: 2003 Newsday Inc.
Contact:  http://www.newsday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/308
Author: Robert E. Kessler

EX-COP GETS SIX YEARS FOR MONEY LAUNDERING

A former New York City police officer from Glen Cove has been sentenced to 
6 years in prison for laundering as much as $4 million for Colombian 
cocaine dealers in Queens.

Homero Zapata, 40, was arrested after he was stopped three years ago for 
speeding on Interstate 95 in South Carolina and police found 
cocaine-contaminated cash in his car. A drug-sniffing dog had been called 
to the scene by sheriff's deputies, who said Zapata was acting too 
nervously for a speeder, according to Assistant U.S. Attorneys Bonnie 
Klapper and Wayne Baker.

The dog detected $200,000 in the back seat of his car under a blanket that 
Zapata's wife, Liliana Lopez-Zapata, had been using, prosecutors said.

Zapata was suspended and then resigned from the police department after the 
speeding stop.

Zapata apologized profusely for the harm he had caused the police, his 
friends, family and his 5-year-old daughter, Vanessa, at sentencing Friday 
before U.S. District Judge Thomas Platt in Central Islip, according to his 
attorney, Bruce Smirti.

Liliana Lopez-Zapata is awaiting sentencing.

Zapata and his wife pleaded guilty to the money-laundering charge during a 
trial in March 2002.

Klapper and Baker said that from 1997 to 1999, the Zapatas would collect 
several hundred thousand dollars at a time from the Meija Colombian cartel 
in Queens and drive it to Florida.
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