Asanza, who was a reluctant government witness, agreed to testify against Iglesias after prosecutors reduced a felony possession charge against him to a misdemeanor. Asanza, 33, who was relieved of duty and lost his police job, received a probationary sentence last year.

Asanza testified last week that “sarge said it was OK to pay confidential informants with dope.”

“That’s a huge piece of bought testimony,” Diaz argued, alluding to Asanza’s deal with prosecutors.

But Del Toro, the prosecutor, countered that Asanza had nothing to gain by testifying because he had already received the probationary sentence. “He wasn’t one of the heroes who stood up to the defendant, but in the end he did the right thing,” Del Toro said during closing arguments.

During his testimony, Iglesias denied again and again that he ever did anything illegal on the job, including asking detectives for “throw-down dope” to plant on a suspect in a downtown Miami parking lot in January 2010.

“Absolutely not,” Iglesias testified, disputing the recent testimony of two detectives. “That’s a ridiculous statement,” he said, calling his former colleagues “liars.’’

Earlier in the trial, CSU detectives Suberto Hernandez and Luis Valdes told jurors that Iglesias asked the pair if they had any “throw-down dope” to plant on the suspect after a search of the man during a Jan. 27, 2010, surveillance operation turned up no drugs.

“He looked at myself and Hernandez and he asked for throw-down dope,” said Valdes, an officer for nearly nine years.

“I said, ‘We don’t do that here. Nobody on this team does it.’’’

Moments later, a Miami police officer who knew Iglesias showed up at the scene. The officer, Ricardo Martinez, is suspected of giving a small baggie of powdered cocaine to Iglesias, who prosecutors claim planted it on the suspect.