NYPD officer, boyfriend arrested on federal drug charges

An NYPD officer and her live-in boyfriend were arrested Thursday for allegedly distributing fentanyl and heroin in New York City, federal prosecutors said Friday.

Officer Grace Rosa Baez and her boyfriend Cesar Martinez were charged in Manhattan federal court Friday with one count of conspiracy to distribute narcotics and three counts of distributing narcotics, according to the office of Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. The defendants face at least 10 years in prison to life in prison under federal drug statutes, depending on which charges they are convicted of, if any.

In a prepared statement, Williams alleged that Baez “flagrantly violated” her oath to “protect and serve the people of New York City … by pushing poison, including fentanyl and heroin, which are driving the nation’s deadly opioid crisis and have been responsible for thousands of tragic deaths in this city and around the nation.”

The charges resulted from an investigation carried out this month by law enforcement officials working with an unnamed “confidential source,” per SDNY.

According to the complaint, Baez and Martinez offered to sell the source kilogram quantities of fentanyl, heroin and cocaine on multiple occasions between Oct. 9 and Oct. 19.

In one instance, Baez told the source she could sell them two kilograms of “top quality” fentanyl for $30,000 and 400 grams of heroin at a price to be negotiated later, the complaint said. Five days later, the source met Baez and Martinez at their shared apartment in Yonkers, where Baez allegedly handed the source a Mentos gum container with a fentanyl sample in a baggie inside.

On Oct. 19, Baez met with the source in Yonkers and handed them packages containing what appeared to be more than one kilogram of heroin and at least 640 grams of fentanyl, federal prosecutors allege.

Until her arrest Thursday, Baez had been employed with the NYPD since 2012, said the complaint, but was recently on desk duty following accusations of misconduct that first surfaced around 2020.

An attorney for Baez could not immediately be reached for comment. Martinez’s attorney Jill Shellow declined to comment.

“These charges are extremely troubling because there is no place for corruption within the NYPD,” Police Commissioner Edward Caban said in a prepared statement. “If found guilty of these allegations, this officer will have tarnished the shield that she wore, as well as her sacred oath to New Yorkers.”

Baez appeared before Judge James Cott on Friday and was released on a $100,000 bond and bail conditions including home detention and electronic monitoring, according to SDNY spokesperson Nicholas Biase.