NEWS & EVENTS

WHEN YOU BUY FAKES, WE ALL PAY.

In New York City alone, taxpayers lose an estimated $1 billion in tax revenue annually from the sale of counterfeit goods. The estimated global sales of these goods is over $500 billion annually.

Profits from counterfeit sales fund organized crime including drug cartels, child labor and even terrorists.

If you have any information about fake goods being sold, visit:

www.iaccsleuth@iacc.org or send a fax to (202) 223-6668. You do not have to give your name.

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Budgets tightening, police departments turn to private money

By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN, Associated Press Writer
July 20, 2003

In the nearly two years since the World Trade Center attack, the New York Police Department has posted detectives overseas, taught others exotic languages and acquired a mobile lab to detect chemical or biological attacks.

It's all on the dime of Pfizer, Motorola and other donors to the New York City Police Foundation, a little-noticed charity whose marriage of private philanthropy and public security is being replicated nationwide.

Police departments with shrinking budgets and a growing list of missions are using nonprofit oundations to solicit funding for new, and sometimes controversial, initiatives.

"Public safety doesn't always get all it needs and running a modern police
department is not a cheap proposition," said Karen Wagener, president of the Los Angeles Police Foundation. "The model of having these public/private partnerships is the way things are going."

In the past five years alone, at least 10 foundations were launched in cities nationwide, said New York City Police Foundation president Pam Delaney, whose group gives annual seminars on establishing them. Atlanta, Detroit, Omaha and Oakland, Calif., are among the cities modeling their efforts in part on New York. In Oregon, the Portland Police Foundation sent the chief and seven officers to a 10-day Spanish immersion course in Oaxaca, Mexico. In Los Angeles, the foundation has purchased digital cameras for domestic violence investigations and telescoping mirrors for the bomb squad.

Los Angeles' new chief, former New York police commissioner William Bratton, is putting increasing emphasis on the method, personally raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for that city's police foundation.

But Los Angeles has also been criticized for designating much of that money for consulting contracts with Bratton's former associates. Wagener said the contracts enable the department to tap the nation's top police strategists, but critics question the loss of standard government protections against favoritism and conflicts of interest.

"It's a way of the government spending money but not following all of the procedures for competitive bidding," said Erwin Chemerinsky, a University of Southern California law professor. "When the police foundation goes out and buys things on its own, or hires consultants on its own, all of those protections are not followed."

Police and foundation officials acknowledge that mixing private money and policing has inherent risks. In particular, they say they guard against the possibility that wealthy donors can gain undue influence.

"It could be seen as a quid pro quo," New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.

Without question, some contributions beef up police enforcement that benefits the donors. Among the largest contributors to the New York City Police Foundation are Coach, Major League Baseball and the Motion Picture Association of America.

Their donations go directly to the police department's six-person trademark infringement unit, which uses a roughly $200,000 Police Foundation account to fund undercover purchases of counterfeit CDs, DVDs, clothes and other goods.

Sgt. Tom McFadden, the unit's supervisor, called the funding a vital resource that does not compromise his unit's independence.

"We're not doing it on behalf of Ralph Lauren; we're not doing it on behalf
of Tommy Hilfiger. We're doing it to get the person who's doing the counterfeiting," he said.

Combatting undue influence was the driving force behind the creation of the New York City Police Foundation in 1971. By forming the foundation, the city could funnel private contributions through a single, independently run organization.

After the Sept. 11 attack, pro-police sentiment caused donations to flood
into its coffers. Now, after years of funding anti-crime ad campaigns, new police horses and similarly traditional items, the foundation has become a way for Kelly to tap millions of dollars unhindered by City Hall deliberations.

"There's a very elongated, extended process," Kelly said. "It's just an easier, quicker way for us to fund things we need."

The NYPD spends almost all of its $3.3 billion annual budget on salaries and other personnel costs, leaving relatively little for new initiatives.

The New York City Police Foundation's budget, meanwhile, has nearly tripled since the World Trade Center attack, to roughly $6.8 million in the just-ended fiscal year.

It pays about $200,000 a year for the expenses of intelligence-gathering
detectives posted overseas to cities such as Tel Aviv, London and Lyons, France. It arranged for Agilent Technologies to donate a van stocked with gear to detect chemical or biological attack.

And it funded a $1.2 million high-tech counterterror operations center and
$50,000 worth of Urdu, Farsi and Pashtun and other language lessons for detectives assigned to intelligence and counter-terror bureaus.

"It enables you to do things in a corporate way," said Kelly, former director of global corporate security at Bear, Stearns & Co.

In that vein, the NYPD is using the Police Foundation to move into the arena of marketing and licensing. The foundation hired a New York-based licensing agency after the Sept. 11 attack to turn the flood of affection for the NYPD into revenue.

The Joester Loria Group is licensing the police department logo for use on action figures, a stuffed plush German shepherd rescue dog, children's bicycles and sleepwear, executive vice president Joanne Loria said.

Police Museum

Be sure to visit the Police Museum located at 100 Old Slip, New York, NY or you may reach the Police Museum at (212) 480-3100 for further information.

Please visit the New York City Police Department's website at www.nyc.gov/nypd to view its current happenings.