A public defender was visiting a client at Rikers last month, armed with papers he had printed out from his own computer to prepare for his client’s upcoming trial on robbery charges.
After the defender, Bernardo Caceres, 30, consulted with the client, he was flagged by a Correction Department dog, and his papers were tested for drugs. He was detained in a Rikers holding cell for two hours and then told his materials had tested positive for THC, the main psychoactive chemical compound in marijuana, Mr. Caceres said.
He was arrested and charged with promoting prison contraband, and the accusations were widely broadcast in local news outlets.
But on Tuesday, the day he was scheduled to appear in court, the Bronx district attorney’s office called his lawyer to say the charges were being dropped, Mr. Caceres said. Subsequent testing had come back clean.
A spokeswoman for the office confirmed on Thursday that Mr. Caceres’s case had been dismissed and sealed.
“My name was smeared and my reputation clearly damaged,” Mr. Caceres said. “Pretty much the only thing on the internet about me were accusations of me being a drug peddler.”
Mr. Caceres and his lawyers said this was not the first time the Correction Department’s drug testing was inaccurate and resulted in a false arrest.
Earl Ward, a lawyer for Mr. Caceres, said that the Department of Corrections had “been on notice” about inaccurate results, referring to a 2024 report published by the city’s Department of Investigation that said the Correction Department’s drug-testing results were often flawed.
“This is someone who is a professional,” Mr. Ward said. “He had his face plastered all over the media as a drug smuggler.”
And, Mr. Caceres said, his client is “back to square zero” since his lawyer’s arrest resulted in a mistrial. He is still in Rikers.
“I want the world to know what’s going on, and just how wrong it is,” Mr. Caceres said. “Because I’m not the first. And while I hope to be the last, I don’t expect to be.”
Following the arrest, the Department of Correction said that Mr. Caceres’s papers were discolored, which can indicate the presence of drugs. The department declined to comment on the new results.
Mr. Caceres worked for Queens Defenders, which represents indigent clients, at the time of his arrest. He has since been hired by Brooklyn Defender Services, which recently took over the Queens Defenders contract.
Taylor Robinson is a Times reporter covering the New York City metro area.
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