Former NYPD Officer Among Five People Charged With Dealing Meth

A former NYPD officer is among five people indicted in federal court for dealing meth and a date rape drug called GBL, the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York announced on Wednesday.

The indictment was unsealed Tuesday in White Plains federal court after three of the defendants—Marco Caso, 48, of New York City; Eric Baker, 37, of Summerset, New Jersey, and Mathew Matteo, 22, of the Bronx—were arrested, according to prosecutors. Irma Materassok, 36, of New Rochelle, was already in state custody on separate charges. Former NYPD officer John Cicero, 38, who resigned from the department in 2010, remains at large.

The five defendants are accused of conspiring to deal at least 500 grams of methamphetamine throughout New York City and Westchester, according to the indictment. The drug dealing allegedly dates from at least 2017 until this month, prosecutors said. All but Baker were charged with plans to deal an unspecified amount of gamma-butyrolactone, or GBL, the liquid date rape drug.

"Methamphetamine devastates communities and GBL spreads danger all over the Southern District of New York, which is why the defendants face serious federal charges," U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said in a statement.

Cicero, of Bronxville, New York, pleaded guilty to beating up a handcuffed man during an arrest in the Bronx caught on video nearly a decade ago, the New York Daily News reported at the time. The newspaper reported he didn't serve a prison sentence, but was instead ordered to build houses for Habitat for Humanity. An NYPD spokesperson said Cicero resigned from the department in 2010.

"As a former police officer, sworn to protect others, Mr. Cicero has seen firsthand the harm these drugs do to our society which makes the charges announced today even more egregious," FBI Assistant Director William Sweeney said in a statement. "He now faces the same grim reality criminals he once locked up did - a long prison sentence, this time in a federal jail cell."

It was not immediately known if those charged had retained lawyers yet.