BAD-BUST GUY: I STILL WANT TO BE A COP

The New York Post by LEONARDO BLAIR

March 27, 2008 -- A cop wannabe who passed a test to enter the Police Academy before he was arrested for an armed bodega robbery last June has been cleared by DNA evidence - and still wants to be one of New York's Finest.
Charges against Gerson Ruiz will soon be dropped, a spokesman for the Brooklyn DA said yesterday.

"I'm doing great now that the truth is out," Ruiz said. "I still want to be a police officer, but with this happening I don't know how the police are going to react." Police had charged that Ruiz, 26, and two masked, gun-toting accomplices had pulled a gun on a bodega clerk last May 5 and fled with an unknown sum of cash. He'd faced up to 25 years in prison. Ruiz said that when he was arrested, the only thing he was toting was a congratulatory letter from Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. He recalled that cops laughed when they cuffed him and found it. "I told them I've never held a gun in my life," Ruiz said.

His lawyer, Salvatore Paszynsky, said police claimed to have a positive ID of his client from three witnesses, a video showing him committing the robbery and fingerprints on a gun. "All this turned out to be untrue," said Paszynsky. He said authorities also claimed to have DNA his client left at the scene, adding he had never been told where or how the sample was obtained. Ruiz volunteered to give another sample, which cleared him. All Ruiz still had to do to become a rookie was pass a medical. "Now that he's been exonerated, we don't expect any problems" about him joining the force, Pasznysky said.