Over a decade, 10 NYPD officers accounted for $68M in police misconduct payouts: Report

By Ramsey Khalifeh

On September 25, 2023

In the decade between 2013 and 2023, 10 NYPD members accounted for more than $68 million in misconduct payouts, according to a new report by the Legal Aid Society. All of them are still on the public payroll, according to the analysis and police records.

Earlier this summer, the Legal Aid Society analyzed police misconduct payouts to show that the NYPD had already paid $50.5 million in the first half of 2023 alone.

Now the public defender group has analyzed 10 years worth of data to highlight two types of officers: The ones with the most legal settlements against them and the ones whose settlements have cost the city the most money.

“Collectively, these active members of the NYPD have garnered hundreds of lawsuits, costing taxpayers millions of dollars in cases raising shocking allegations of misconduct, yet they are still allowed to wear a badge and carry a gun. It is also deeply concerning that many have attained ranks of sergeant or above,” Jennvine Wong, staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society, said in a statement.

The president of Police Benevolent Association said lawsuits are not a reliable measure of whether officers are doing their jobs.

“Lawsuits are frequently settled for reasons that have nothing to do with the actions of a specific police officer named in the suit, including cases where the city settles rather than fighting a frivolous suit in court,” PBA President Patrick Hendry in a statement.

An NYPD spokesperson said the department carefully analyzes both individual cases and litigation trends.

In each category in Legal Aid’s analysis, one officer stood out above others:

David Grieco, Sergeant, 48 cases settled since 2013

Greico, who is still active in the NYPD, was a defendant in 48 cases for which the city paid legal settlements between 2013 to 2023. The city payout sum from all of those lawsuits was $1,099,825.

In one case, Grieco and two police officers allegedly forcefully entered a victims home without a search warrant, according to the press release. After searching the apartment and inquiring about the location of a family member, the officers then arrested several people without cause, the press release said. The city settled the lawsuit in 2021 for $45,000, according to Legal Aid.

In a 2019 case, the city paid out $87,500 after Grieco and other officers were accused of making an unlawful arrest, according to Legal Aid’s Law Enforcement Lookup database.

Wong said that many of the cases involving Grieco and other police officers reflect a culture of impunity.

“These cases raise shocking allegations and misconduct, and it’s not only that they are still employed by the department, but a number of them have actually been promoted… that is particularly troubling,” Wong told Gothamist.

In each case, Wong also said that the cases were settled without any admission of liability or wrongdoing, so they don’t show up in the officers’ disciplinary history. NYPD police data shows that Grieco has no disciplinary action on his record.

Pedro Rodriguez, officer, highest total payout case since 2013

Rodriguez has been named in three different suits since 2013 that paid out more than $12,050,000, according to the report, but almost $12 million came from a single 2019 case.

In the case, Rodriguez, a second officer, Pavel N. Kuznetsov, and 10 other non-named defendants were accused of allegedly tackling and roughly handling a then-teenage boy who was paralyzed as a result. The city paid $12 million in 2022 to settle the case.

A spokesperson with the Police Benevolent Association said it’s unfair to hang the whole $12 million settlement on Rodriguez. He said Rodriguez wasn’t the primary actor in the incident and was only one cop among 10 other “Jane Doe” officers named in the case.

“Sometimes it can be difficult to parse out exactly who was the main actor as opposed to who may have just been one of the officers assigned,” Wong said in response to the PBA. “Nonetheless, we shouldn’t be minimizing an officer’s involvement because every officer should have a duty to be checking their peers to be insuring that misconduct also isn’t happening in their presence.”

This piece was republished from the Gothamist.