A Brooklyn man says cops gave him a hard time for having Viagra — but a judge found the charges were limp.  Earl McLeod, 33, was driving his car on Fulton St. in Bedford-Stuyvesant last February when he was pulled over by cops.  McLeod and three passengers were ordered out of the vehicle and searched without their permission, according to the suit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.  Officer David Esparragoza of the 79th Precinct alleged in arrest paperwork that he observed McLeod drop a bottle that was labeled Ibuprofen on the ground. The bottle contained a single Viagra pill and McLeod was charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance.  “Viagra is not a controlled substance and possession of it is not a criminal act,” the suit says.  A prescription is required to dispense the drug, however.  The criminal charge was dropped the following day when McLeod appeared before a judge in Brooklyn Criminal Court.  McLeod’s lawyer, Nicholas Mindicino, told the Daily News that the entire encounter appeared to be illegal — that there was no basis for the car stop, and there was no basis for the search, not to mention the bogus charge.  The passengers in the vehicle were not arrested.  “A police officer’s job is to arrest people who commit crimes, and they can’t do their job if they don’t know what is a crime and what is not,” Mindicino said.  “It’s absolutely a case of police officer incompetence.”  The lawyer declined to say whether the Viagra pill belonged to McLeod.  A spokesman for the Law Department said the suit will be reviewed when the city is served with the legal papers.  The NYPD declined to comment.  McLeod is seeking unspecified monetary damages for “emotional trauma, embarrassment, and humiliation,” according to the suit.  It wouldn’t be the first time cops appeared to need a refresher course in narcotics enforcement.  The city forked over $42,000 to a Staten Island man in 2013 who was arrested for possession of a peppermint candy that cops mistook for crack cocaine.  Three Brooklyn men collected $33,000 from the city last year to settle their lawsuits after cops thought the Jolly Rancher candies they had purchased in a Coney Island candy shop were crystal meth.
A Brooklyn man claims he was falsely arrested by an NYPD cop for possession of a Viagra pill.