Suffolk police officers violated rights of man in strip-search on side of Sunken Meadow Parkway, federal jury finds

A federal jury has found that three Suffolk police officers violated the rights of a Commack man when they strip-searched him on the shoulder of the Sunken Meadow Parkway in May 2016.

The jury, which started deliberating Monday afternoon, on Tuesday found officers liable for $100,000 in compensatory damages and $200,000 in punitive damages. Attorney Frederick K. Brewington told the jury that the officers stopped Brian Garcia, 45, and searched him and his vehicle without his consent because he is Latino.

There were no eyewitnesses or video of the May 20, 2016, traffic stop and jurors, who declined to discuss the verdict with Newsday, had to decide if they believed Garcia or the officers’ version of the incident, Brewington said.

"This was really a David-and-Goliath type situation," Brewington said outside the federal courthouse in Central Islip following the verdict. "It was Brian Garcia against the police world, and what this verdict shows is that Brian Garcia, a single resident, a single member of the community, can stand up and have their rights vindicated. So this is a victory."

The lawsuit alleges Suffolk police illegally stopped Garcia. In testimony, police acknowledged that they had not witnessed him commit any crime, Brewington told the jury in closing remarks on Monday. Garcia has several relatives with law enforcement backgrounds, including his father Angel Garcia, a retired NYPD detective.

"You hear stories like this all the time, but you don’t think it is going to happen to you, especially when you come from a family in law enforcement," Brian Garcia said after the verdict was announced.

Representatives of Suffolk County Executive Ed P. Romaine and the Suffolk County Police Department declined to comment on the jury’s verdict.

The complaint originally named Suffolk County, the Suffolk County Police Department and Suffolk officers as defendants. The department was dismissed as a defendant in 2023, and the county was dismissed last year.

In closing remarks delivered Friday, Assistant County Attorney Stacy Skorupa argued that police did not know Garcia’s ethnicity when they stopped his vehicle. The officers pulled over Garcia, she said, because they believed he had engaged in a drug transaction.

Garcia gave the officers permission to search his body and his car, Skorupa told the jury on Friday. The officers found an open container of beer in the car and remnants of a marijuana cigarette, Skorupa said. They let Garcia go with a warning after he passed a sobriety test, she said. Their lenience, she added, was rewarded with a lawsuit.

On Friday, Skorupa told the jury that the officers believed Garcia had engaged in a hand-to-hand drug transaction. The sun was setting when Garcia stopped at the home of the target of a drug investigation, making it difficult for police who were watching the home to determine his ethnicity. There is no mention of race or ethnicity in radio transmissions related to the traffic stop, she said.

The lawsuit went to trial in May 2024, ending with a hung jury. A second trial began June 23.

Garcia named officers David Young, David Ferrara, Det. Arthur Rall and Det. Timothy Zorn as defendants in the lawsuit filed in June 2018. Det. James Stapleton, originally named as a defendant, died in 2021. Ferrara was dismissed from the suit on June 5, according to court records.

The Suffolk County Detectives Association and the Suffolk Police Benevolent Association did not immediately return requests for comment.

Police stopped the vehicle Garcia was driving that night — a Nissan Pathfinder owned by his father — after spotting him at the East Northport home of an acquaintance who was under surveillance for allegedly dealing drugs, according to the complaint.

The officers made anti-Latino comments during the 45-minute stop on the busy highway according to the complaint, and suggested tattoos on Garcia’s hand indicated he was a gang member.

The officers forcibly removed Garcia’s belt, causing his pants to fall to his ankles, the lawsuit said. They stuck flashlights down his boxer shorts and shook his body to see if anything would fall out, it said.

Brewington said the verdict was not only a win for Garcia, but for anybody who has been unlawfully stopped police.

"It’s a victory for Brian Garcia, but it’s also a victory for all those remain unnamed, who were stripped searched on the side of the road by this gang of three," Brewington said.