It’s a real life episode of Shades of Blue where a dirty cop lies and sends an innocent man to jail.

Eric Glisson spent 18 years in jail along with four others — Carlos Perez, Cathy Watkins, Devon Ayers and Michael Cosme — after they were all found guilty of killing delivery driver Baithe Diop in 1995. All five were freed in 2013 after evidence found that two gang members, Gilbert Vega and José Rodriguez, were the actual killers.

Lt. William “Sean” O’Toole, commander of the Bronx Homicide Squad, allegedly committed perjury when he testified at trial about how his investigation led to Glisson, court papers claim.

While O’Toole testified that he grabbed him outside his apartment building, Glisson insists the officer tricked a neighborhood kid into getting him to open his apartment door.

Additionally, Glisson and the other four who were falsely imprisoned said O’Toole also derailed an investigation that could have led to the real killers nearly 15 years earlier and a former detective working under the high-ranking NYPD official at the time agreed.

Detective Peter Forcelli said he alerted O’Toole about a tip in late 1997 or early 1998, an exchange he remembers, “like it happened yesterday.” He was re-investigating the case and wanted to find the file on the killing, but O’Toole “remained silent” although he “had testified just months earlier at the trial.”

Furthermore, O’Toole allegedly destroyed a detective’s notebook whose re-investigation of the case led to exonerations for Glisson and the others.

“No one would believe that this notebook slipped away accidentally,” said Peter Cross, Glisson’s lawyer. O’Toole insisted he “didn’t do anything wrong” and said the claims are “baloney.”

“There’s no reason for me to hide the notebook or take the notebook,” he said, before ironically adding, “Obviously anyone can put anything they want in court documents.” 

(Photo: Eric Glisson via Facebook)