Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey wanted more than officer Joseph Sulpizio’s badge – he wanted the cop behind bars, locked up like a criminal. The 42-year-old narcotics cop won’t face criminal charges because the Philadelphia Daily News messed up an undercover Internal Affairs investigation when it detailed allegations that Sulpizio had repeatedly stolen money from people he stopped, Ramsey said. “He will not be criminally charged because you blew the investigation,” a miffed Ramsey told the newspaper . “The shame of this is that we weren’t able to get him criminally because of the fact that the story ran.”
Ramsey fired Sulpizio yesterday for lying to Internal Affairs investigators and for having no regard for his responsibility as a cop. Sulpizio had been taken off the street twice since 2008 for allegedly stealing money from people he detained but never arrested. Long before the Daily News published a Dec. 10, 2010, article about Sulpizio, high-ranking narcotics supervisors repeatedly alerted Internal Affairs that Sulpizio might be a thief. Sulpizio has denied taking money from anyone.