An NYPD lieutenant allegedly concocted bogus sting operations on his colleagues to bilk thousands of dollars in overtime pay — yet was protected from punishment by the head of the Internal Affairs Bureau, a new lawsuit charges.
The whistleblower complaint filed Wednesday by Officer Scott Munro Jr. alleges a rampant campaign of cover-ups and retaliation within the IAB condoned by Deputy Commissioner Joseph Reznick.
“These guys are supposed to be the oversight of cops, cross your Ts and dot your Is, and they are corrupt,” Munro, 29, who was demoted from detective after speaking out about the alleged corruption, told The Post.
His 75-page suit centers around Lt. John Dandola, then part of the IAB’s Integrity Testing Unit, known as Group 52 and tasked with conducting undercover tests on its officers.
Dandola would allegedly “manipulate” the sting operations to line his pockets with overtime pay — but his ruse was found out in 2016 during a test-gone-wrong on a Detectives’ Endowment Association trustee’s officer son.
Dandola and Group 52 Sgt. Jack Wu are accused of ordering their underlings to destroy the audio tapes from the botched operation — prompting Reznick to transfer them to separate precincts, a move he called “punishment enough,” the suit says.
But Munro claimed that “instead of anyone getting charges … or command discipline, there was no movement, except sweeping everything under the rug.”
Reznick also allegedly failed to alert the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office of Dandola and Wu’s allegedly illegal actions, which also involved “planting evidence on suspects and officers during Integrity Tests,” according to the complaint.
Munro accuses Reznick of being well aware of the pair’s behavior but either “acquiesced or ordered these illegal actions.”
The transfer slashed Dandola’s overtime — and served as the “catalyst” for his impending “vendetta” against the DEA that also targeted Munro, the suit says.
Munro — whose father, Scott Munro Sr., is the union’s trustee and sergeant at arms — got caught in Dandola’s proverbial cross hairs as a result of a 2018 spat at the Hauppauge Fire Department.
Munro, then a volunteer at the Suffolk County firehouse while working as an NYPD detective, says he was falsely accused of assaulting another fireman — prompting an IAB investigation and threats from Dandola.
“His father’s next, f—ing union,” Dandola, who’d been transferred to the Chief of Detectives Investigations Unit, allegedly spewed.
Wu allegedly added, “We’re going to crush him like a cockroach.”
“It was a ‘now we can f–k his kid’ kind of thing,” Munro explained, saying his dad is No. 4 on the DEA board. “I didn’t know any of this until this happened. It’s like they were targeting me.”
Munro, who was placed on modified duty over the alleged assault, filed an IAB complaint over Dandola — then says he got demoted for doing so.
“They didn’t investigative Dandola,” he said. “It was almost like they tried to re-go through my case and fix it and not actually investigate the allegations I brought to them.”
Munro, who wound up taking a plea deal in the assault case, added, “This was official misconduct, there were falsified reports and the commissioner made the decision to have me demoted based on bad information.
“Everywhere I went, everyone I went to, it went nowhere. I’m sure I’m not the only one. What do I have to do to get my voice heard?”
Munro is seeking unspecified damages and to be reinstated to his rank of detective. His suit names Reznick, Dandola and Wu specifically, as well as other officers.
He remains on modified duty in Queens South.
An NYPD spokeswoman said, “We will review the lawsuit if and when we are served.”
DEA president Paul DiGiacomo told The Post that Munro shouldn’t have been demoted ahead of a trial and “due process.”
“And if there was any unethical investigative tactics in the investigation, it should be treated the same if any other member of the service was to do that,” DiGiacomo added.
Munro’s attorney, John Scola, said, “Internal Affairs claims to be protecting the integrity of the Police Department, but when faced with some of their own falsifying investigations and manipulating integrity tests on cops, they elect to simply transfer those officers without punishment.”