A former aide to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has been charged in Manhattan Criminal Court with impersonating a top NYPD officer and others in dozens of prank calls to NYPD brass and politicians, including America's Mayor Rudy Giuliani. According to the charges 55-year-old Manuel "Manny" Lopez posed as Chief Michael Shea in at least 21 phone calls which the retired sergeant admitted to prosecutors "started out as a joke and thereafter became an obsession."
It is unclear why Lopez, who retired from the NYPD in 2004 after a reported falling out with Kelly, went on his crank calling spree but a source tells DNAinfo that he had been suffering from 9/11 related stress.
Lopez's calls were made from the offices of Coastal Developments LLC—a company Lopez worked at until Monday—and generally involved him either requesting callbacks to Shea's office or for the person at the other end of the line to come to the chief's office. When Lopez retired Shea took over Kelly's personal detail. In November Lopez even called the office of Rudy Giuliani impersonating Shea but court papers don't reveal if he actually got to speak to the former mayor.
According to Lopez's attorney the former police officer "served and protected the people of the city of New York with great distinction for 21 years. When the dust has settled, his good name and reputation will be untarnished by these events." Lopez was charged with four dozen counts of criminal impersonation and dozens of counts of aggravated harassment. He was released after posting $10,000 bail.
All in all we're kind of disappointed in Lopez's prank calls. While we were never much for crank calling ourselves, a childhood of Jerky Boys and The Simpsons at least taught us that asking people to come to someone's office is about the least interesting trick one can pull. And that includes asking if someone's refrigerator is running. But at least he wasn't prank calling 911!
