NYPD Cop Charged With Armed Robbery

MANHATTAN (CN) - A New York police officer was charged with conspiring to rob a drug dealer on 183rd Street. Jorge Arbaje-Diaz and his crew of six others hog-tied a suspected drug dealer in his apartment and ransacked it for drugs and money, federal prosecutors said.

When they found that their victim was not at home, Arbaje-Diaz and his co-defendants decided to use a hydraulic pump to break in his door, prosecutors said. But the man arrived home, and they used his key, hog-tied him and pilfered his place while part of the crew cruised outside, watching for cops, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. A surveillance camera allegedly recorded Arbaje-Diaz carrying a laptop computer from the building after the August heist.

Arbaje-Diaz resigned from the NYPD after he was arrested.

And in an angle that Stephen King fans will appreciate, the U.S. Attorney's Office "praised the investigative work of the Drug Enforcement Task Force's Redrum unit, which is comprised of agents and officers of the DEA, NYPD and New York State Police."

Redrum, which is "murder" spelled backward, was an obsessive chant of the hero-villain of Stephen King's bestseller, "The Shining."

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