An investigator in a city Correction Department unit that probes jailhouse drug smuggling and other misconduct by correction officers was arrested in a stolen car with baggies of cocaine in its center console and heroin in her purse, the Daily News has learned.
Anna Farias, 31, who was hired to work in the department’s Investigations Division on May 30, was pulled over by 105th Precinct officers on Nov. 10 at 147th Ave. and 223rd St. in Brookville, Queens, a neighborhood near Kennedy Airport.
Cops made the stop after they noticed her 2022 Mercedes-Benz’s rear license plate was obscured by a frame, court records show.
After Farias consented to a search of the vehicle, officers found three baggies of cocaine in the car’s center console and six glassine envelopes of heroin in Farias’ purse, say the records.
The officers soon realized the Mercedes-Benz, which had Connecticut plates, was reported stolen on March 8, say the court papers.
One clue was that the Mercedes had a forged vehicle identification number sticker on the windshield and a phony federal inspection sticker covering the actual VIN number on the inside rim of the driver’s door, the records show.
One of the arresting officers was able to peel away the inspection sticker — something that would not be possible with a real one, the court record states.
“This is exactly why it’s so important to thoroughly vet the people you place in an elite unit like Investigations,” said Sarena Townsend, a former DOC deputy commissioner for investigations and trials. “You first have to consider the contraband getting into the jails. Investigators are not searched when they enter Rikers Island.
“In addition, DOC needs to reopen every single one of her cases and track whether any contraband can be traced back to her,” Townsend added. “If I’m a union lawyer representing officers accused of misconduct, I’m questioning every case she touched and asking for them to be dismissed.”
Correction Department spokesman Frank Dwyer said Farias was immediately suspended without pay for a month. The Correction Department will move to fire her when the suspension ends, he said.
Farias was assigned to the Investigation Division unit that probes correction officers’ use of force, officials said.
She was technically on leave when she was arrested, the officials said. An investigation is continuing.
Farias was charged with possession of the stolen Mercedes, possession of the fake VIN number sticker, and drug possession, the court records show. At arraignment in Queens Criminal Court, she was released without being required to post bail.
Marc Laykind, Farias’ defense lawyer, said his client had no knowledge of the drugs or that the car was stolen.
“The car is not registered to her, not owned by her, there is no connection to her at all and she had no knowledge of what was inside the car. She was in temporary possession of the vehicle,” Laykind said.
“She’s raising her family, and it’s not something that she’s involved in. She has no track record of anything like this, and no criminal record. This is out of character for her.”
Farias was hired at a salary of $58,167. She previously worked as a child protective specialist for the city Administration for Children’s Services, for which she earned $64,000 a year from 2020 through the first months of 2023, city payroll records show.
Correction staff have been found in the past to bring contraband to city jails. In one recent case, ex-correction officer Krystle Burrell was sentenced Tuesday to 29 months in federal prison for taking bribes to smuggle drugs and phones into the now-closed Anna M. Kross Center on Rikers Island.
Staff in the Correction Department’s Investigations Division have a key role in catching and deterring contraband smugglers. But in 2023, the division has been caught up in several controversies.
In August, Correction Commissioner Louis Molina demoted assistant investigations commissioner Ruben Benitez, a longtime fixture in the unit, to the rank of investigator for reasons that have not been explained.
That same month, Molina hired Wilfredo Perez, a former vice president for the state prison guards union, as the number two official overseeing investigations.
Florence Finkle, who was the Investigations chief at the Correction Department between 2010 and 2014, previously said Perez’s selection suggested the current correction leadership “doesn’t give a hoot about holding officers accountable.”
On April 2, the then-deputy commissioner of Investigations Manuel Hernandez resigned after a court-appointed monitor tracking violence in city jails reported that staff were being pressured to take it easy on cases involving officer misconduct.
The monitor disclosed that 22 investigators quit the agency in 2022, following by an “exodus” of 25 investigators in January. The departures came as the monitor reported that in an overwhelming majority of discipline cases brought against correction officers in the previous year, no action was taken.