A retired NYPD cop broke down crying in court yesterday before he was sentenced to 15 years for scheming to serve as an armed courier for a cocaine dealer.
Alfredo Rivera, a second-generation cop whose son also joined the police force, insisted he was a "good man" who "just did a stupid thing."
"I'm not a bad person," he said between sniffles at his hearing in Manhattan federal court. "All my life, I've always tried to please everybody . . . because I always felt the need to be loved, to be wanted, to be like others."
Rivera, 54, was busted in a 2010 FBI sting in which he was paid $12,000 to transport what he thought was 10 kilos of coke from Long Island to The Bronx.
He was recruited for the job by former auxiliary NYPD cop Rafael Jimenez, who was sentenced earlier to at least 10 years behind bars.
Judge Katherine Forrest spared Rivera any more than the mandatory minimum sentence and forfeiture of the $12,000, saying: "You seem genuinely remorseful."
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