A crew of recently hired cops the city claims were wrongly hired have histories of arrests, drug use, prostitution, and a huge number of driving violations, according to a court filing.
Many of the cops were initially canned because background checks turned up a history of poor decision making, or, in some cases, multiple arrests — including one with three arrests, according to the new filing, including extensive quotes from their disqualification notices.
But the 31 unqualified cops were allowed to unlawfully join the force, the city said, because of the “unauthorized unilateral actions” of a former commanding officer tasked with screening candidates — despite lacking the authority to do so.
“His actions, therefore, were a nullity,” the city claimed, and that the 30 cops rolled the dice on their own “by not questioning or otherwise determining how they could miraculously become appointed as police officers,” despite already receiving notice that they were disqualified.
The commanding officer, NYPD Inspector Terrell Anderson, was reassigned amid the scandal and has since been hit with departmental charges, law enforcement sources said.
According to the court filing, one rookie cop who made it into the academy at age 24 lacked any prior work history, but had an “extensive history of poor decision-making and recklessness,” the filing claimed.
That history included multiple driving convictions for driving 50 miles per hour over the speed limit, an arrest for a suspended license — with eight suspensions in total — and once struck a pedestrian with his car.
Another officer “reported using LSD and marijuana to cope with stress,” the filing said, while one cop said she “openly discussed arguments and conflicts with other people in a boastful manner.”
“What you do to me I’m going to do to you twice and I hope you feel worse than the way you made me feel,” she said, according to her quoted psychological disqualification summary.
Another of the accidental officers allegedly paid an erotic dancer for sexual intercourse in 2017, and paid a female masseuse to masturbate him in 2018, the court papers claimed.
One “freely admitted” to a number of arrests for marijuana, suspended licenses and involvement with eight car crashes.
That officer “exploited his father’s status as an NYPD detective in order to circumvent personal responsibility,” according to the included excerpt from the disqualification notice.
The move to fire the cops is now on hold after the NYPD Police Benevolent Association filed a restraining order to temporarily halt the city’s actions, with a judge extending it for 60 days on Tuesday.
“These are 31 police officers’ lives — their livelihood,” NYPD Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry told reporters outside the courthouse.
“[The judge] understands they have families, bills, rent,” Hendry said. “They were just told, ‘You’re not entitled to any process. You’re fired, 24 hours. That is wrong. The entire method — how it was done — is wrong.
“They were deemed qualified New York City police officers. They were called back. They completed what they were asked to complete,” he said. “These police officers were deemed qualified by the NYPD.”
The PBA chief also took a shot at people with “anonymous sources, trying to say bad things about these people, about these cops, trying to sabotage them, their careers, everything they have done so far.”
“There’s been people out there, anonymous sources, trying to say bad things about these people, about these cops, trying to sabotage them, their careers, everything they have done so far,” Hendry added.
Police brass has been struggling to beef up the ranks of New York’s Finest in recent years, with Commissioner Jessica Tisch relaxing some academy standards earlier this year.
Anderson, who led the NYPD’s “Candidate Assessment Division” until he was transferred to the housing unit May 12, was the subject of an Internal Affairs Bureau probe into claims he allowed more than 70 candidates to stay at the police academy despite them failing psych requirements.
Anderson claimed that NYPD brash pushed him to keep non-qualified recruits at the academy, including the Emilio Andino, the nephew of ex-NYPD Lt. Quathisha Epps, who was later implicated in a tawdry sex-for-OT scandal at the department, according to sources.
He is now facing departmental charges — a move some call unfair.
NYPD Capt. Chris Monahan, president of the Captain’s Endowment Association said Thursday that the embattled inspector was “under tremendous pressure to fill NYPD recruit classes.
“He had a careful review process and didn’t place candidates with diagnosed mental health issues in many classes,” Monahan said. “Inspector Anderson had the authority under previous administrations to hire candidates.”
—Addtional reporting by Jorge Fitz-Gibbon and Dorian Geiger