New York Daily News – by John Marzulli
It’s already been a very expensive year.
The $40 million Central Park Five settlement would boost 2014 city payouts in police misconduct and civil rights suits past last year’s total. And there’s still six months to go.
The legal tab, if the Central Park deal is approved, would hit $101 million this year, compared to $96.3 million for all of 2013, according to figures provided to the Daily News from City Controller Scott Stringer’s office.
Taxpayers shelled out $106.6 million in 2012 and $106.8 million in 2011 to settle NYPD misconduct and civil rights cases, the controller’s figures showed.
“This should be a wakeup call to the de Blasio administration that they have to do something about police misconduct that’s costing taxpayers an outrageous amount of money,” said civil rights lawyer Sanford Rubenstein.
DAVID HANDSCHUH/NEW YORK DAILY NEWSCity Corporation Counsel Zachary Carter says the settlement figures don’t signal a trend since cases are evaluated individually.The attorney negotiated a $2.5 million settlement this year for the mother of unarmed National Guardsman Noel Polanco, gunned down by a detective during a car stop on the Grand Central Parkway in Queens.
But plaintiffs’ lawyers cautioned against reading too much into the ballooning settlement figures.
Close to half of the payments came from the wrongful convictions in the 1989 Central Park rape case and a $10 million settlement to some 1,200 class action plaintiffs claiming false arrests during the 2004 Republican National Convention.
City Corporation Counsel Zachary Carter said the inflated numbers didn’t signal a trend.
Also this year, the city reached a $2.5 million settlement for the mother of unarmed National Guardsman Noel Polanco, killed by a detective during a car stop on the Grand Central Parkway in Queens.“Each case continues to be evaluated on its individual merits,” Carter said Saturday.
Last year, then-Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo mounted an aggressive strategy of taking more police lawsuits to trial instead of paying settlements, with an eye on containing legal costs.
Veteran lawyer Joel Berger said he hasn’t seen any significant changes under Carter and noted that most of the high-ranking decision-makers in the Law Department carried over from the previous administration.
“In day-to-day routine cases, I see the same fierce opposition and low settlement offers that I experienced during the Bloomberg administration,” Berger said.
“This should be a wakeup call to the de Blasio administration that they have to do something about police misconduct that’s costing taxpayers an outrageous amount of money,” said civil rights lawyer Sanford Rubenstein.”
Rubenstein. Figures.
At the rate they’re going, they’ll have to get the Fed to print up more fiat money for them.
Most citys are in debt and borrow the money to pay these. So borow more and pay more intrest then figure out what the intrest a year for bad police cost you the tax payer. Add that to there wage every year plus other little things and see if you want to keep them on the payroll much longer. Or just have them stop by and sell your house and belongings off so they can be payed and have there pension to spend in a all retired cop subdivision in Florida. Yes it is that bad whay you owe them today on those 20 year high intrest loans to pay for this.