Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
News
NYC taxpayers on the hook for more than $117M in police misconduct payouts last year
By
Samantha Max
Published Mar 2, 2026
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
Sven Hoppe/dpa (Photo by Sven Hoppe/picture alliance via Getty Images)
By
Samantha Max
Published Mar 2, 2026
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
New York City will spend more than $117 million on lawsuits resolved last year accusing the NYPD of misconduct, a new analysis from the nonprofit Legal Aid Society finds.
That’s the third-highest yearly total since at least 2018, when the city started publishing NYPD payout data as part of a local law that tracks civil actions against the police department, according to a Gothamist review of a dataset compiled by Legal Aid. In 2024, the amount topped $200 million.
The high payout amount reflects a “culture of impunity” within the police department, said Jennvine Wong, supervising attorney with Legal Aid’s Cop Accountability Unit.
“All of these kinds of things cost the taxpayer money,” she said. “The NYPD has not done enough to prevent that.”
A spokesperson for the NYPD said many of the incidents at the center of the lawsuits happened more than 20 years ago and don’t reflect the current state of policing. The spokesperson also said Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch has taken significant steps to increase accountability and update policies that could create a greater risk of litigation, including regular meetings to review compliance issues like use of force and new restrictions on vehicle pursuits.
Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry said in a statement that lawsuit payments “are no reflection on how police officers are performing their duties.”
“The city routinely settles lawsuits in cases where police officers have done nothing wrong, rather than fighting them in court,” he said. “Police officers are often not informed of these settlements and have no opportunity to clear their name.”
Wong said it’s difficult to pinpoint all the factors driving last year’s high payout amounts, including because the incidents of alleged misconduct span many years. But she said one trend that appeared in several lawsuits is allegations that police failed to provide medical care to people in custody.
Of the more than 1,000 lawsuits resolved last year, 17 cost taxpayers more than a $1 million apiece, city data shows. The two highest payouts went to Eric Smokes and David Warren, who settled for $13 million and about $11 million, respectively, after a Manhattan judge overturned their convictions for the killing of a French tourist near Times Square during the 1987 New Year’s festivities.
Smokes and Warren alleged in their lawsuits that George Delgrosso, a “corrupt detective” leading the investigation, framed them and coerced witnesses to lie, along with other detectives and prosecutors. Smokes and Warren were both arrested as teens and spent more than two decades in prison, according to their lawsuits.
Delgrosso died in 2024. The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment on the Smokes and Warren settlement. A spokesperson for the New York City Law Department deferred comment to the NYPD, which said it works closely with district attorneys to get them the materials they need for reviews of potentially wrongful convictions.
Reversed convictions accounted for more than a third of the payout dollars — or about $42 million — in 2025, according to a police department spokesperson.
The $117 million total only accounts for a portion of money the city spends on allegations of NYPD misconduct. The city comptroller’s office also settles many cases before formal lawsuits are filed.
The office released a report last September that found claims against police accounted for the largest share of tort claims against the city between July 2024 and June 2025. The comptroller’s office recommended the NYPD be required to pay part of the legal settlement costs through its own budget to incentivize prevention and accountability.
City Hall spokesperson Sam Raskin said Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration is reviewing pending lawsuits across agencies to identify policies and practices driving payout costs.
“The mayor and police commissioner share a clear goal: accountability and fiscal responsibility,” Raskin said in a statement. “Every dollar spent on misconduct settlements is a dollar that can’t go to housing, education, parks, or the services that truly make New Yorkers safer.”
Here are some of the other most expensive payouts from last year.
Kenneth Bacote v. City of New York, et al.: $5,750,000
The city agreed to pay Bacote nearly $6 million for a police assault that caused blindness in his left eye, court records show.
On June 2, 2020, police approached Bacote at the Kingsborough Houses in Crown Heights and attacked him, according to a lawsuit he filed in state court. Officers threw him to the ground, beat him and dragged his body before yanking his limbs into handcuffs and shackles, the lawsuit states.
Bacote lost sight in his left eye after an officer shot it with a Taser. Bacote accused police of using excessive force during an improper arrest.
Taron Parkinson et al. v. City of New York et al.: $5,215,000
Parkinson and eight other plaintiffs accused former NYPD detectives Kevin Desormeau and Sasha Cordoba of engaging in a pattern of misconduct and falsely charging them with crimes they did not commit.
The group was wrongly incarcerated for more than seven-and-a-half years, collectively, because of Desormeau’s and Cordoba’s misconduct, according to a federal lawsuit filed in 2022.
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz moved to toss the plaintiffs’ convictions, along with dozens of others, in 2021.
“The vacated convictions, however, are inadequate to repair the damage Plaintiffs have suffered as a result of the Defendants’ misconduct,” the lawsuit states.
Parkinson had a newborn son when he was convicted and missed the first years of his life, according to the lawsuit. The girlfriend of another plaintiff, Barry Sease-Bey, miscarried while she was detained on false charges, the lawsuit states. Plaintiff Audrey Brown was deemed an unfit mother and lost custody of one of her kids, according to the lawsuit.
Desormeau faced probation after a Queens jury convicted him of perjury, while Cordoba was sentenced to 60 days of incarceration after pleading guilty in a separate case in Manhattan, according to Parkinson’s lawsuit and news reports.
Desormeau was dismissed from the department in January 2018 while Cordoba resigned without permission in June 2018, according to the NYPD.
Tagged
new york city
nypd
public safety
Samantha Max
Samantha reports on whether New Yorkers feel safe and whether the institutions that are supposed to protect them are working. Before coming to WNYC/Gothamist, she spent three years covering the criminal justice system in Tennessee for Nashville Public Radio. Her reporting on Nashville's police department received multiple awards, including the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. Samantha was also part of the inaugural class of Report for America, a service journalism program that sends up-and-coming reporters to local newsrooms across the country. She is a Northwestern University grad, a Baltimore native and fluent in Spanish. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal: samanthamaxwnyc.93.
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE news
Dump truck driver hits and kills cyclist on 34th Street in Midtown, NYPD says
It's the latest in a string of hit-and-run deaths in the city in recent months.
By
Liam Quigley
Published Sep 28, 2026 at 4:15 p.m. ET
New ingredient mandated for Latin American kitchen, restaurant plates in NJ
The Garden State now requires that corn masa dough and flour made and sold in the state be fortified with folic acid.
By
Arya Sundaram
News
New ingredient mandated for Latin American kitchen, restaurant plates in NJ
The Garden State now requires that corn masa dough and flour made and sold in the state be fortified with folic acid.
By
Arya Sundaram
A Brooklyn jail cell filled with smoke. The emergency button failed, a lawyer said.
By
Samantha Max
Crews launch tunnel machines to dig first new Hudson River rail tunnels since 1910
By
Michael Sol Warren
NYC nor’easter dries up after weather service reports minor flooding
By
Ramsey Khalifeh
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .