A cabbie popular among Binghamton University students was arrested in Endicott last Thursday for allegedly dealing crack cocaine out of his taxi.

Village of Endicott police officers stopped 46-year-old Orlando P. Rivera ‘ ‘Peter Rabbit’ to his customers ‘ in his 1994 Chevrolet taxi van on North Street near Harrison Avenue late April 19, said Detective Lieutenant Craig Williams of the Endicott Police Department. They seized an undetermined amount of crack cocaine, $2,680 in cash, cell phones and the van.

Also in the van was 22-year-old Malik Speller of New York City. Both he and Rivera were arrested and charged with third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance, a felony, The Press & Sun-Bulletin reported April 20.

Rivera and Speller had been under investigation and were taken in after a crack sale took place in the vehicle, Williams said. Williams would not comment further on the sale or the investigation, citing a pending investigation.

The two men were arraigned in village court and sent to Broome County Jail without bail. Rivera is scheduled to appear in Broome County Court on Monday at 2 p.m.

Rivera has not had a license to operate a taxi in the City of Binghamton since June 30, 2006, according to the office of the Binghamton City Clerk.

This is not the first documented incident of Rivera’s involvement with drugs.

Rivera alleged in June 2006 that he had been robbed, but investigators from the Binghamton Police Bureau believed he had been in a drug deal gone awry.

According to Rivera’s signed account, a young male had robbed him in his cab at gunpoint at around 2:30 a.m. in Downtown Binghamton and then fired the gun as Rivera was fleeing the cab. Rivera said he fell on his way to the river bank, where a fisherman later spotted him laying on the ground.

But investigators found a ‘loose white residue’ on the the driver’s seat of Rivera’s taxi, a report said. The residue ‘field tested positive for cocaine.’

‘I did snort powder cocaine at this time,’ Rivera admitted in writing. ‘The male also wanted me to smoke crack. I did not. I spit in his crack pipe.’

‘[Investigator] B. Surace and I had some concerns about the story he gave,’ wrote Investigator J. Cornell in a Detective Bureau report. According to that report, Surace told Rivera that ‘things did not add up. He told him it sounded more like a drug deal, because someone that robs someone generally does not do drugs with the robber. He was also told there was a fisherman at the dam that never heard any shots.’

His history aside, Rivera was often a favorite of BU students.

Eric Schwartz, who graduated from Binghamton University’s School of Management in 2006, said he rode with Rivera around 10 times.

‘[He’s] very pleasant. He cares [for] the students, makes me feel like [I am] him his friend,’ Schwartz said.

‘If you yell out to him ‘ like ‘Hey Rabbit,’ Shwartz recalled, ‘he will holler back. And he will talk to you in the cab.’