EX-COP'S DRUG HEIST FOILED

Note: Staff writer Rocco Parascandola contributed to this story.

A former city police officer was indicted yesterday on charges that
she was part of a plot to rob cocaine stash houses in Washington
Heights while she was studying for promotion to the rank of sergeant,
officials said.

Kirsix De La Cruz, 32, was first arrested April 26, the day she
resigned from the Police Department, according to officials and court
records. At that time De La Cruz was charged in an unpublicized
federal criminal complaint along with two other suspects for being
part of the drug rip-off conspiracy.

Yesterday, the original complaint and the new indictment were
unsealed in Manhattan federal court. The documents say De La Cruz and
two other suspects, Luis German and Markus Vizaniaris, were suspected
of planning the robbery of a cocaine cache in Washington Heights in July 2005.

According to the complaint, investigators were tipped off to De La
Cruz's involvement by a confidential witness who claimed the female
officer was his niece. The witness had lent De La Cruz several
thousand dollars so she could go to class to prepare for the Police
Department sergeant's exam, court papers stated. The witness then
asked De La Cruz whether she knew any cops who could help him with
his business of robbing drug dealers and she said she would let him
know, according to investigators.

In July 2005 De La Cruz introduced the confidential witness to
German, the complaint stated. It was De La Cruz who then suggested
that the proceeds of any drugs stolen by the witness could be shared
with her and German, court papers stated.

German then tipped off the witness to a Washington Heights apartment
where several pounds of cocaine were located, the complaint stated.
The witness and Vizaniaris then stole 15 pounds from there, according
to the complaint, adding that De La Cruz told the witness she wanted
to be paid in cash. Officials said the stolen cocaine was worth more
than $100,000.

The witness was arrested later in Manhattan with a backpack
containing 13 pounds of cocaine - two pounds had been given to
Vizaniaris - and started to cooperate with investigators in January,
the complaint stated. With the help of law enforcement, the witness
made a number of tape-recorded calls to De La Cruz in which she
agreed to find out information about why Vizaniaris and German had
been arrested in unrelated cases, officials said.

De La Cruz, who has been free on an unsecured $50,000 personal
recognizance bond since her April arrest, joined the Police
Department in 1995. She had worked in the 33rd Precinct in Washington
Heights until 2005, when she was transferred to the Police
Department's management information system department, which deals
with computer systems, officials said. Her attorney, David Stern,
declined to comment.

Vizaniaris, 36, and German, whose age wasn't given, are being held
without bail on the federal case, court records show. Their attorneys
didn't return calls seeking comment.