In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was a plainclothes police officer working in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan to expose vice racketeering.
[2] In 1970, he contributed to a front-page story in The New York Times on widespread corruption in the NYPD, which drew national attention to the problem.
[2] Mayor John V. Lindsay appointed a five-member panel to investigate accusations of police corruption, which became the Knapp Commission.
On June 27, 2013, the USA Section of ANPS (National Association of Italian State Police) awarded him the "Saint Michael Archangel Prize".
After his service in the army, from about 1954 to 1956, he worked as a part-time private investigator and as a youth counselor while attending Brooklyn College.
[4] Serpico was a plainclothes police officer working in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan to expose vice racketeering.
Finally, he contributed to an April 25, 1970 front-page story in The New York Times on widespread corruption in the NYPD, which drew national attention to the problem.
Four officers from the Brooklyn North police command had received a tip that a drug deal was about to take place.
Two policemen, Gary Roteman and Arthur Cesare, stayed outside, while the third, Paul Halley, stood in front of the apartment building.
Halley stayed with the suspects, and Roteman told Serpico, who spoke Spanish, to make a fake purchase in attempt to get the drug dealers to open the door.
[11] On May 3, 1971, New York Metro Magazine published an article, "Portrait of an Honest Cop," about him, a week before he testified at the departmental trial of an NYPD lieutenant accused of taking bribes from gamblers.
I hope that police officers in the future will not experience ... the same frustration and anxiety that I was subjected to ... for the past five years at the hands of my superiors ... because of my attempt to report corruption.
[16] In December 2021, Eric Adams, the mayor-elect of New York City and a former NYPD officer, said "[Serpico's] bravery inspired my law enforcement career" and said that he would ensure that the omission was corrected.
[17][18] On February 3, 2022, Serpico received the certificate, which he greeted with an improvised "21-gun salute" made with the sound of popping bubble wrap.
[24] He provides support to "individuals who seek truth and justice even in the face of great personal risk," calling them "lamp lighters"; he prefers that term in place of the more conventional "whistleblower," which refers to alerting the public to danger,[25] in the spirit of Paul Revere's midnight ride during the American Revolutionary War.
[27] In 2015, Serpico ran for a seat on the town board of Stuyvesant, New York, where he lives, his first foray into politics,[28] but was not elected.
"[31] On August 19, 2017, Serpico gave a speech which was broadcast live on Facebook as he stood with NYPD police officers in New York City on the bank of the East River at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge in support of Colin Kaepernick, for his protests alleging a culture of police brutality.
"[33] However, Serpico disagrees, stating in 2010 that, "An honest cop still can't find a place to go and complain without fear of recrimination.
In 1973, while living in the Netherlands, he became involved with a woman named Marianne whom he wed in a "spiritual marriage" and called her his "true soul mate."
Serpico contested the child support order, claiming that the mother told him she was on the contraceptive pill, an allegation she denied, but her friend testified against her in court.
He was granted citizenship after extended research by the president of ANPS USA, Chief Inspector Cirelli, who established the jus sanguinis or "right of blood".