Near the end of July, Philadelphia Police took Angel Ortiz, a cop in North Philadelphia’s 22nd District, off the street. The move came after City Paperpublished an investigation of a large heroin arrest marred by inconsistencies— Ortiz’s ex-partner, a former officer named Andre Boyer, had accused Ortiz and narcotics officer Diertra Cuffie of fabricating portions of the arrest report, and had accused Cuffie of executing a search warrant that contained false statements. The article by Daniel Denvir reported that in sworn court testimonies, Ortiz and Cuffie had told conflicting stories about what hap-pened in that September 2011 arrest. RELATED:Laser pointed at Philadelphia police helicopter from a Temple University dorm About a month after City Paper published its investigation,Ortiz was assigned to a desk job. A police spokesperson declined to say whether the Internal Affairs Department was investigating Ortiz. But the paper has confirmed that he has been assigned to the Differential Police Response Unit, which is where cops under in-ves-tigation are frequently placed. City Paper now hasobtained a police department property receipt that raises even more questions about the drug arrest — and, specifically, the conduct of Narcotics Officer Cuffie, who has been with the department since 1989, and was responsible for much of the paperwork that is now in question. Several inconsistencies on the paperwork — the arrest report, court testimony, the search warrant and the property receipt — raise further questions about the drug bust.
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