Immigrant mom of ex-NYPD Sgt. Erik Duran says family’s American dream now a nightmare with son’s prison sentence

The immigrant mother of jailed former NYPD Sgt. Erik Duran decried her son’s manslaughter conviction and controversial prison sentence as the end of her family’s American dream Tuesday.

The distraught 63-year-old woman said in an exclusive statement that the family is now stuck in a “horrible nightmare” as Duran, a married father of three, languishes behind bars while trying to appeal the verdict handed down by a Bronx judge.

“We came to this country to raise our family and to pursue the American dream, but that dream ended the day our son was wrongfully convicted and then sentenced to jail,” she told The Post.

“Our dream and Erik’s dream of serving his city in the NYPD has turned into a horrible nightmare that we live every day.”
Former NYPD Sgt. Erik Duran in uniform.Provided to the NY Post
Duran, 38, has been locked up since Thursday, when Bronx Judge Guy Mitchell sentenced him to 3-to-9 years in prison for fatally flinging a picnic cooler at a drug suspect attempting to flee arrest during an undercover sting in 2023.

Duran’s mother, who did not want to be identified, came to New York from Ecuador in 1981, while the ex-cop’s father had reached the Empire State from the same South American country a few years earlier, in 1978.

The 13-year law enforcement veteran has said he grew up in a crime-plagued Bronx neighborhood and that he was inspired to join the NYPD after he saw police race toward danger during the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

He later married his high school sweetheart — in a Bronx courthouse down the block from the room where he was sentenced.

“His kids don’t have their father, his wife has lost a husband and I have lost my son,” his distraught mom said in a statement through Duran’s legal team.

“Where is the justice in that? We pray every day that his lawyers can win his appeal and bring our son home.”

Duran insisted during his trial — in a case brought by the state Attorney General’s Office — that he threw the cooler at 30-year-old Eric Duprey to protect the lives of other cops in the path of the suspect’s motorized scooter on a Highbridge sidewalk.

But Mitchell, at the non-jury trial, determined that Duran’s use of deadly force was not justifiable – and deemed he was only trying to arrest Duprey, rather than save lives, when he chucked the full Igloo cooler on Aug. 23, 2023.
Duran was sentenced in Bronx Court on Thursday.Matthew McDermott for NY Post
The picnic equipment hit Duprey, a dad of two, in the arm, causing him to lose control of the moped and crash, leaving him with fatal head trauma.

Mitchell said during last week’s sentencing that the punishment would serve as a “general deterrent ” for other police officers.

His legal team is now fighting the second-degree manslaughter conviction, while also making a Hail Mary bid to get the Putnam County resident out of jail on bail pending the appeal.

“We pray every day that this appeal goes well for him. We want him home as soon as possible … we are very confident that it is going to happen,” Duran’s uncle, Luis Torres, told The Post in an interview Tuesday.

“He doesn’t deserve to be [in prison,]” said Torres, 50, who is married to a sister of Duran’s father. “He’s a great, great guy and hopefully he can come home with his family because they really need him.”

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He described Duran as a dedicated dad and said he set an example for other police officers while he was on the job, adding that the family was devastated over the “injustice.”

“He tried to protect all the community [in the Bronx] and all the families around, all the kids,” Torres said.

Duran was fired by the NYPD when he was convicted by Mitchell in February.

His former union, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, has launched a fundraiser with the National Police Defense Foundation to help raise money for his legal case.