City will pay $75M in ticket-quota suit

The city has agreed to shell out $75 million to settle a class-action lawsuit involving nearly 1 million bogus NYPD summonses allegedly issued to meet quotas, officials said Monday.

The payout comes six years after a lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court claimed cops were forced to issue tickets for quality-of-life offenses to meet targeted numbers, “regardless of whether any crime or violation” occurred.

The case involved more than 900,000 summonses that were issued between 2007 and 2015 and dismissed over legal insufficiency, which a judge eventually ruled was “tantamount” to lack of probable cause.

The people who were ticketed may now be eligible for compensation to the tune of $150 per summons. They will be notified about the claims process in order to get the cash, officials said.

Some dismissed summonses that were issued after 2015 will be covered, too, authorities said.

Any money that is not claimed will go back to the city.

The settlement is pending Judge Robert Sweet’s approval following a hearing in the next three months, the city’s Law Department said.

Elinor Sutton, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said, “We have achieved an important landmark settlement in a civil-rights case that advances the cause of justice.”

The payout by the city includes $18.5 million in attorneys’ fees.

City lawyers Monday continued to deny the NYPD uses quotas.

“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.

It was revealed during the battle that e-mails on former Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s desktop computer that could have been related to the case were deleted in defiance of a court order.

Kelly denied any role in their deletion. The city said it was unintentional.

One police source said the settlement was a “shame” because most tickets get dismissed “not because of lack of reason but because judges simply dismiss them — not because of lack of probable cause.”

Another law-enforcement source said a summons quota was, in fact, in place.

“There’s no denying there was a quota,” the source said. “They always held it over cops’ heads to write tickets, and if they didn’t, they would be punished.”