Lawyer is named new fed monitor overseeing NYPD stop and frisk case

A new federal monitor in the landmark NYPD stop-and-frisk case has been appointed to replace Peter Zimroth, who died last year.

Mylan Denerstein, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, will take over the role of overseeing the police department in the Floyd v. City of New York litigation from Zimroth who died of cancer on Nov. 8, at age 78.

Denerstein (photo) was counsel to Gov. Cuomo from 2010 to 2014, and prior to that a deputy state attorney general. From 2003 to 2007, she was the FDNY’s top legal advisor, and before that, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan for seven years.

In 2013, the Daily News reported she was under consideration to serve as FDNY commissioner, but she withdrew her name from contention.

She graduated from Columbia Law School in 1993.

Zimroth was appointed monitor by U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin in 2013 after she ruled the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk strategy was unconstitutional. His role was mainly to make sure the court-ordered reforms and training were being enacted by the department.

Denerstein was appointed by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres who succeeded Scheindlin.

The Floyd case was originally filed in 2008 and alleged the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk campaign unfairly targeted young men of color. In 2011, for example, more than 685,000 people were stopped, the vast majority within those racial groups, according to NYPD data. The number of reported stops has since fallen sharply since then with just over 9,000 in 2020, police department stats show.

The NYPD reported fewer than 2,000 stops in the first three months of 2021.