Blaz’s police plea news to us: gov aide
‘COVERED UP’ THE VIOLENCE I gave the NYPD every opportunity to correct this injustice, but they continually swept it under the blue carpet.
some of their households and it’s covered up. The behavior is condoned and they took no action in my case.”
Kenny, an international flight attendant, is suing the department for $15 million, according to a notice of claim filed Thursday.
She nearly lost her job when, after brushing by her husband in their home, Monahan filed assault charges against her.
With those accusations hanging over her head, Kenny wasn’t allowed to leave the country, affecting her livelihood.
“I was about three months away from losing my job,” she said. “As an international flight attendant, every day I go to work, I leave the country. I was afraid to leave the country because of the pending criminal charges. It was an egregious violation of my civil rights.”
Her son allegedly witnessed the incident and wanted to testify on behalf of his mom, according to sources with knowledge of the case.
But his dad refused to let the son talk — and the charges were ultimately dropped because Monahan was being uncooperative, sources said.
Kenny said her marriage fell apart shortly after her husband was elected to the union’s board. At the time, she had just gotten out of the hospital following a medical procedure and he refused to help her open a prescription pill bottle.
When she asked her son to open it for her, Monahan called the police on her, accusing her of child endangerment, she said.
“At about midnight, the police department arrived and had me get out of my bed, endangering my health and questioned me for four hours,” she said. “There were multiple levels of police supervisors in my home, but nothing ever came of it. It was all swept under the rug.” Things quickly fell apart after that, she said. In 2016, her husband filed for divorce. The two are currently separated. In March 2017, Monahan boasted that he was “banging three women on the side,” according to court papers. “The police department had been part of my family for 18 years, through my whole marriage,” she said. “When I met him he was in narcotics. I made a lot of sacrifices so he could advance in his career. “I was very proud of him, but as he climbed higher in the ranks, things began to unravel,” she said. Yet despite the abuse she received, she never filed charges against Monahan, she said.
Sanders said Kerry is another victim of what he calls the “white-shirt immunity machine” — the NYPD’s highest ranks covering for each other, even when one is accused of domestic violence.
“The NYPD and mayor keep saying that the department’s discipline system is ‘great,’ but cops are using their powers to falsely arrest people,” he said. “How is that great?”
The NYPD did not immediately return a request for comment. City attorneys were reviewing the notice of claim, the city Law Department said.
Captains union head Roy Richter said the allegations “are works of fiction.”
“(They) will be appropriately heard in an upcoming divorce trial,” he said. MAYOR de Blasio has insisted that he has actively pressed Albany leaders to change a state law that he says bars the release of police disciplinary decisions.
But Gov. Cuomo’s office says it hasn’t heard a peep from City Hall about changing section 50-a of the state Civil Rights Law, which the city has interpreted as barring release of cops’ personnel records.
“We haven’t found any records nor does anyone have a recollection of them discussing it with us,” Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi said Friday.
On Thursday and last month, de Blasio (photo) told reporters that he had raised the issue repeatedly, including with leaders in Albany.
“The mayor reiterated his commitment to reforming 50-a in his recent state budget testimony, singling it out as one of his top priorities for the current legislative session,” de Blasio spokesman Austin Finan said Friday.
Finan, though, confirmed City Hall has not talked to Cuomo’s office on the issue.
The disclosure emerged as the Daily News continued its series on the secretive and often arbitrary NYPD disciplinary system, where punishment can be more about who you know than what you did.
For decades, the NYPD made disciplinary outcomes public, but abruptly stopped doing it in 2016, claiming it was a violation of section 50-a to release the information.
Critics say the city is wrong — that limited information can be released — and that it never should have appealed a 2015 decision in favor of the Legal Aid Society, which had sought the release of the misconduct findings against Officer Daniel Pantaleo, the Staten Island cop who held Eric Garner in a chokehold.
The city appealed and won, and on Friday a spokesman for the Law Department said it stands by its decision to file the appeal.
“The ruling of the trial judge in this case was inconsistent with the interpretation of 50-a required by our appellate courts, including the state’s highest court, the New York Court of Appeals,” the spokesman said. “The trial court’s ruling was unanimously reversed by the Appellate Division in accordance with prior Court of Appeals cases interpreting 50-a.”
The city’s police unions have since dug in their heels to oppose any release of information, saying the advocates wanted “unfettered access” to the records.