City payouts in NYPD misconduct cases up by nearly $30M

City payouts in police misconduct cases are up by nearly $30 million, while the number of new lawsuits has fallen, according to new data.

In 2019, the city paid out $68,688,423 to people who claim they were aggrieved by cop misconduct including in cases of excessive use of force, assault, malicious prosecution, false arrest or false imprisonment.

In 2018, the city only paid out $38,951,976. The tally of payouts over the last five years is $300,754,486, according to the city data.

While the settlement and verdict amounts have increased by nearly $30 million, the number of new lawsuits filed in the last year has fallen by over two hundred cases. In 2019, 1383 police misconduct cases were filed while 1615 were filed in 2018, according to the data.

Ten of the largest settlements from 2019 account for over $23 million of payouts — or nearly half of the total payouts from last year.

The highest settlement amount went to Derrick Hamilton who had his conviction overturned in 2015 after spending over 20 years in prison. Hamilton — who was convicted by shady cop Louis Scarcella — received $6,625,000 from the city last year.

But the Legal Aid Society says there are major problems with the way the city reports the data that obscures the costs of these types of cases. For instance, lawsuits that are settled before they even get to court are not included in the figures.

A rep with Legal Aid also said that fact that the city only releases the last five years of data obscures the running totals as old cases settle years later.

“An epidemic of misconduct within the New York City Police Department continues to cost New York City taxpayers tens of millions of dollars each year,” Corey Stoughton, of Legal Aid said.

Stoughton called for Albany to repeal the 50a law that shields certain information about officers from coming out without a court order.

“Police Secrecy Law 50a denies us data about how and why that misconduct occurs and what the NYPD is doing – or more to the point, not doing – about it,” Stoughton said

The NYPD and the Law Department did not immediately return requests for comment.

Additional reporting by Anabel Sosa