Last June, NYPD officer Alvaro Casado sued to be reinstated after he was fired for testing positive for cocaine on an Air Force drug test (he was in the Air National Guard), which he blamed on a potent cup of Mate de Coca tea. But yesterday a Manhattan judge ruled that he can't have his job back, saying that as a probationary cop the NYPD had the right to fire him for any reason as long as it wasn't "in bad faith."
Judge Salliann Scarpulla wrote, "Here, Casado fails to point to any competent evidence demonstrating that NYPD's determination to terminate his employment was in bad faith, for an impermissible reason, or in violation of statutory or decisional law." Casado previously claimed that his girlfriend's mother had prepared him the tea to "calm his nerves" (really?) after a car accident, but that Air Force officials determined he "did not knowingly ingest an illegal substance."
