Brooklyn judge to clear way for civil trial focused on cop perjury

A Brooklyn federal judge in a false arrest suit on Tuesday said he would clear the way for a trial focused on whether cops trump up cases at the end of their shifts for overtime and “the failure to take reasonable steps to control lying by police officers is a policy of the NYPD.”

U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein, ruling in a lawsuit by a Brooklyn man whose bust for a small drug deal that he denied was later dismissed, cited recent news stories about police perjury cases and what he saw as rising public concern about the practice.

“Police officers, unlike civilians, have the power to terminate constitutionally protected liberty; with this power comes great responsibility, as well as the need for appropriate oversight,” the judge wrote.

The NYPD’s Civilian Complaint Review Board has expressed concern about a rising number of false statements by officers, and Weinstein’s heavily footnoted ruling cited more than a dozen articles about police lying, some linking rising overtime with phony arrests.

“As one commentator discussing police officer veracity indicates: some experts on police practice treat lying by police at trials and in their paperwork as the ‘norm,’ ‘commonplace,’ or ‘routine,’” Weinstein wrote.

The lawsuit that triggered Weinstein’s ruling was filed by Hector Cordero, 58, an immigrant who worked as a cop in the Dominican Republic. He was working as a clerk at a Brooklyn minimart in 2014 and has no criminal record.

An undercover narcotics squad from the 83rd Precinct, according to Weinstein, said they saw a small drug transaction outside the minimart — later arresting a “buyer” with 0.138 grams of cocaine and, after some confusion about an identification, going inside and accusing Cordero as the seller.

He had $600 but no drugs, and the store owner said he hadn’t left the store. Arrested and strip searched on Oct. 24, 2014, Cordero’s charges were dismissed four months later. The arrest, near the end of the squad’s shift, generated 22 hours of overtime pay, Weinstein said.

The judge noted that the cop who observed the “purported” sale has a disciplinary record for falsifying overtime as well as “a number of prior lawsuits claiming false arrest.

The four cops, Weinstein said, will face a jury trial in January, and if they are found liable he will conduct a second trial over whether their behavior was encouraged by a “pattern or practice” of overtime policy that “incentivizes” false arrests and inadequate monitoring of abuses.

He also criticized city lawyers for “contemptuously” suggesting at a hearing that if the cops are found liable, the city’s responsibility would not increase damages so it might consent to liability and “throw in a dollar” to avoid a second trial.

“Even if the city’s damages . . . will be the same, a finding by a petty jury that a municipal policy encouraged widespread police officer misconduct can be significant,” Weinstein wrote. “It may indicate the need for more careful tracking of individual police officers’ litigation history and a more effective discipline policy to avoid repeated lying by a number of officers.”

The NYPD declined comment. A spokesman for the city law department said Weinstein’s refusal to dismiss the case prior to trial was not “unusual.”

“It remains our position that the arrests by the subject officer were supported by probable cause and that there is no evidence to support any legal claim against the City of New York,” said spokesman Nick Paolucci.

Gabriel Harvis, Cordero’s lawyer, said he was “pleased” by the ruling. “The NYPD’s policies affect everyone,” he said, “and the current system would appear to incentivize abuse.”