Cop summons quotas cost city $75M
Will pony up for 900,000 ‘quota’ summonses
THE CITY agreed to pay up to $75 million Monday to settle a class-action lawsuit charging the NYPD issued hundreds of thousands of summonses without proper legal justification, in order to fill a quota.
The settlement means that people who received more than 900,000 summonses that were later tossed by a judge will be eligible for payments capped at $150 per incident.
The deal includes $18.5 million in legal fees. Lawyers called it the largest settlement for a false-arrest class action in history.
“We have achieved an important landmark settlement in a civil rights case that advances the cause of justice,” said Elinor Sutton, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.
The city maintains that the NYPD does not use quotas. As part of the settlement, however, police officers departmentwide will receive notices that quotas are banned.
“This settlement reflects the remarkable progress the NYPD has made to ensure that summonses are properly drafted and include sufficient details to document probable cause,” Corporation Counsel Zachary Carter said.
“This agreement is a fair resolution for class members and brings an end to a longstanding and complex case in the best interests of the city.”
The settlement requires final approval by Manhattan Federal Judge Robert Sweet.
The suit, filed in 2010, revolved around “C” summonses for minor criminal offenses, such as disorderly conduct and drinking in public. Some 900,000 of those summonses — or a quarter of all summonses issued between 2007 and 2015 — were dismissed for failing to articulate probable cause. Under the settlement, the recipients of those bogus summonses are eligible for payouts. Reforms of the summons system are already underway, the Law Department noted. In June, Mayor de Blasio announced that certain low-level offenses would result in civil summonses, rather than criminal ones or arrest. The lead plaintiff in the case was Sharif Stinson, who in 2010 was slapped with summonses for trespassing and disorderly conduct after leaving his aunt’s Bronx apartment. Cops reported that Stinson used obscene language, but they did not specify what he said. Both summonses were dismissed by a judge.
The plaintiffs argued the avalanche of bad summonses were issued to fill a quota. The attorneys also charged the NYPD engaged in a “stunning pattern” of evidence destruction regarding quotas.
While seeking to disprove the existence of quotas, the city revealed that most of former Commissioner Raymond Kelly’s emails were deleted toward the end of his tenure at the NYPD. Kelly said he had no role in the deleted messages.
It was also revealed that Joe Esposito (inset left), the former NYPD chief of department and current head of the Office of Emergency Management, considers himself “not technologically savvy.” He said he rarely used emails or text messages while at the NYPD.