Rangel 'Niece' Springs Thugs

Seems the rotten apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

A Port Authority police lieutenant who officials believe is the niece of Rep. Charles Rangel helped spring a trio of suspected pot smugglers from jail -- just a month after trying to get a mentally ill, gun-toting Navy castoff on a flight out of JFK, The Post has learned.

The Internal Affairs unit has now opened a second probe into Lt. Coretta Smith, a 15-year veteran who sources said came to the rescue of the suspects. They had been pulled over on the George Washington Bridge with stacks of cash in a car wreaking [sic] of marijuana.

Wreaking of marijuana? OK, we'll overlook that egregious misspelling. Now as to whether this Smith is related to Rangel should be ascertained definitively before they run with this story, but we'll see how things progress.

Whatever the case, it seems Smith should not be wearing a uniform if these allegations are true.

Smith has so far been spared serious charges from the airport shenanigans. Insiders believe she is getting lenient treatment because of her high-powered uncle, who has great influence over federal grants to the agency as dean of the New York congressional delegation, the sources said.

Rangel did not return calls.

Smith stepped back into hot water Monday, when PA cops stopped a 2003 Buick on the New Jersey side of the bridge after they suspected its driver was intoxicated.

"I smoked a joint," the driver, Robert Timmons, 27, allegedly admitted to PA Police Officer Leonel Gonzalez.

A police dog smelled pot in a woman's purse. It contained several bundles of cash with "a strong odor of marijuana all over the money," according to a police report, and there was also pot residue in the car.

The officers took Timmons, of Paterson, NJ, and his passengers, Tyre Gyasi, 19, also of Paterson, and a girl, 17, into custody.

Smith, who had been assigned to a Port Authority station house in New Jersey that evening, got involved.

For reasons that remain unclear, she refused the request by Gonzalez, the arresting officer, to alert the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office.

"That's not your call. It's the lieutenant's job, and I am not doing that," Smith said, according to sources.

She also refused to authorize a criminal history check of the trio, sources said.

"They could have given the names Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Minnie Mouse, and they would have been let go," said one law-enforcement source.

Read the rest.

It will be interesting to see what super crimefighter Mike Bloomberg has to say about this case.