Schoolcraft v. The City Of New York et al

Filing 600

DECLARATION of Alan H Scheiner in Opposition re: 566 FINAL MOTION for Attorney Fees for Levine & Gilbert and Peter J. Gleason, Esq.., 559 MOTION for Attorney Fees , Costs and Disbursements.. Document filed by The City Of New York. (Attachments: # 1 Affidavit Declaration of Alan H Scheiner Previously Filed April 8, 2016, # 2 Exhibit Exhibit A, # 3 Exhibit Ex A-1, # 4 Exhibit Ex A-2, # 5 Exhibit Ex B, # 6 Exhibit Ex C, # 7 Exhibit Ec D, # 8 Exhibit Ex E, # 9 Exhibit Ex F, # 10 Exhibit Ex G, # 11 Supplement Ex H, # 12 Exhibit Ex I, # 13 Exhibit Ex J, # 14 Exhibit Ex K, # 15 Exhibit Ex L, # 16 Exhibit Ex M, # 17 Exhibit Ex N, # 18 Exhibit Ex O, # 19 Exhibit Ex P, # 20 Exhibit Ex Q, # 21 Exhibit Ex R, # 22 Exhibit Ex S, # 23 Exhibit Ex T, # 24 Exhibit Ex U, # 25 Exhibit Ex V, # 26 Exhibit Ex X, # 27 Exhibit Ex Y, # 28 Exhibit Ex Z, # 29 Exhibit Ex AA, # 30 Exhibit Ex BB, # 31 Exhibit Ex CC, # 32 Exhibit Ex DD)(Scheiner, Alan)

EXHIBIT CC

Adrian Schoolcraft: So Who’s Crazy Now?

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http://nypdconfidential.com/columns/2010/100823.html

Adrian Schoolcraft: So Who’s Crazy
Now?
August 23, 2010
In a bizarre attempt at damage control, police
department officials offered whistleblower cop Adrian
Schoolcraft a sweetheart deal if he rejoined the NYPD
fold.
The offer — conveyed through such unlikely
intermediaries as a reporter at the cop-critical Village
Voice and a Bronx captain without sufficient rank to
guarantee such a deal — featured a cushy job in the
canine unit for the animal-loving Schoolcraft.
It also allowed Schoolcraft to testify against two
bosses: Inspector Steven Mauriello, whom Schoolcraft
accused of fudging crime statistics, and Deputy Chief
Michael Marino, who allegedly directed a police posse
to bring Schoolcraft to Jamaica Hospital’s psychiatric
ward, where he was kept against his will for six days.
According to Schoolcraft’s lawyer, Jon Norinsberg, the
offer was presented to him by Captain Brandon del
Pozo, the commanding officer of the 50th precinct in
the Bronx.
According to Norinsberg, del Pozo told him the offer
had the approval of Deputy Commissioner Julie
Schwartz, the Department Advocate, and of “people in
the office of Deputy Commissioner for Strategic
Initiatives, Michael Farrell.”
Farrell and del Pozo did not return calls. Schwartz was
said to be on vacation.
A July 26th email from del Pozo to Norinsberg (see
below), advises him to contact Schwartz directly.
The email also says that Internal Affairs Group I — the
unit that investigates high-ranking officers — is
investigating Schoolcraft’s claims that the department
retaliated against him for reporting corruption.

“‘Why are you, as the commanding officer of the 50th
precinct, getting involved?’” Norinsberg said he asked
del Pozo.
“He said it was because he was the only person in the
department that Schoolcraft trusted, the only person in
the NYPD that he would speak to.”
Whether that is true remains unclear.
What is true is that, last year, Larry Schoolcraft
contacted retired police sergeant David Durk, who
reached out to del Pozo, who was then in Internal
Affairs.
Durk, a singular figure in the NYPD, had played a key
role 40 years ago in bringing Frank Serpico to the New
York Times after the police department had rebuffed
Serpico’s attempts to report corruption in his Bronx
plainclothes unit.
The publication of Serpico’s charges led to the Knapp
Commission on Police Corruption, which found
pervasive and systemic payoffs to officers at every
level of the department, even in the office of the police
commissioner.
Like Durk, del Pozo is an exceptional figure in the
NYPD. As is Durk, who attended Amherst College, del
Pozo is an Ivy League graduate. He served in the

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Adrian Schoolcraft: So Who’s Crazy Now?

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From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Sent: 7/26/2010 12:47:17 P.M. Eastern Daylight
Time
Subj: DC Julie Schwartz, Department Advocate

http://nypdconfidential.com/columns/2010/100823.html

military, is reportedly studying for his Ph.D. in
philosophy, and has written articles on such
controversial subjects as the torture of prisoners and
the racially charged confrontation between a black
Harvard professor and a white Cambridge, Mass.
police sergeant.

Dear Mr. Norinsberg,
Please feel free to give Deputy Commissioner Julie
Schwartz a call. She is the NYPD's Advocate.
These numbers will reach her: 646-610-5140 /
5144.
Also, I was able to ascertain a few additional facts
I'd like to pass along or reiterate. PO Schoolcraft's
allegations of retaliation, etc. are indeed open
cases, being investigated by IAB Group 1,
commanded by Deputy Inspector David Grossi.
The case against PO Schoolcraft for being AWOL
is being handled by the Brooklyn North
Investigations Unit, a borough-based unit that often
accounts to IAB but is a part of the Patrol Services
Bureau.
So, for this reason, DI Grossi will be able to treat
PO Schoolcraft solely as a complainant and not as
the subject of an investigation, and vice-versa.
Also, it stands to reason that Deputy
Commissioner Schwartz will not have the same
attorney who is working on the AWOL case also
handle the retaliation case on behalf of the
department.
Beyond this, it is probably best to clear things up
attorney to attorney. Deputy Commissioner
Schwartz would prefer to speak with you directly,
rather than working with the particular advocates
assigned to PO Schoolcraft's cases.
Respectfully,
Brandon del Pozo
Captain
Police Department, City of New York
Commanding Officer, 50th Precinct

If true, that’s the first indication that Mauriello and
Marino may be under investigation for their dealings
with Schoolcraft.
Schoolcraft has produced audio tapes he secretly
made of roll call meetings at the 81st precinct, which
Mauriello headed, to back up his allegations that
officers were ordered to downgrade felonies to
misdemeanors, and to refuse to take victims’
complaints, in an effort to drive down the crime rate.
Under pressure from Brooklyn politicians after those
tape-recordings became public, Police Commissioner
Ray Kelly transferred Mauriello to a Bronx transit unit
over the July 4th weekend.
At the time, Deputy Commissioner for Public
Information Paul Browne said the transfer was
unrelated to Schoolcraft’s allegations.

Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence David Cohen
dispatched him in 2005 to Amman, Jordan as one of
the department’s elite overseas detectives. Cohen also
sent him to Mumbai, India after the terrorist attack
there in 2008.
Last October, Kelly appointed him commanding officer
of the 50th precinct, making him, at age 35, one of the
youngest captains in the department.
So does it make sense that a smart, ambitious guy like
del Pozo would risk his stellar career by acting on his
own to convey an offer to Schoolcraft?
More likely, who among the brass came up with this
harebrained scheme, and did it have the imprimatur of
Commissioner Kelly? Since no decision — no matter
how small — occurs without the commissioner’s
knowledge, one might be tempted to think so.
In addition, does this backroom approach to
Schoolcraft reflect department concerns that his
allegations, like Serpico’s 40 years before, may reach
beyond a single unit?
Just as payoffs, back then, covered virtually every
police precinct, it is an open secret within the
department that low-balling crime statistics occurs in
many, if not most, precincts throughout the city.
Norinsberg has established a website —
www.schoolcraftjustice.com — and says he is
receiving calls from officers all across town reporting
low-balling of crime reports.
Yet Kelly has been successful in blocking outside
agencies from investigating these allegations, which
first surfaced in 2005 when the patrolmen’s and
sergeants' unions stated publicly that the practice of
downgrading crimes was city-wide.
Kelly refused to turn over documents on this issue
requested by Mark Pomerantz, chairman of the
Mayor’s Commission to Combat Police Corruption,
which lacks subpoena power. Bloomberg supported
Kelly by remaining silent, prompting Pomerantz to
resign.
Since then, not one of the city’s district attorneys has
had the guts to begin an investigation into the union
claims.
After Schoolcraft made his initial allegations about the
81st precinct, Larry Schoolcraft wrote to Pomerantz,
now in private practice. Pomerantz wrote back: “I
would refer you to the Commission to Combat Police
Corruption, but in candor I do not think they have the
ability to do anything for you.”

2/23/2016 10:07 PM

Adrian Schoolcraft: So Who’s Crazy Now?

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http://nypdconfidential.com/columns/2010/100823.html

However, Norinsberg said del Pozo told him the
opposite — and called Mauriello’s new assignment a
“dead end job.”
In his $50 million lawsuit against the department filed
earlier this month, Schoolcraft claims that his forced
hospitalization, with no medical justification, was the
NYPD’s way of retaliating against him for exposing
corruption.
So, if the NYPD thought Schoolcraft was crazy, why
would they want him back on the force?
Equally bizarre is the way the NYPD conveyed its olive
branch to Schoolcraft: del Pozo last month called
Village Voice reporter Graham Rayman, who had
recently written a series of articles about Schoolcraft.
Rayman contacted Norinsberg, who pronounced the
offer of a deal “ridiculous.” Rayman declined to
comment.

WHERE WAS PAUL? Last Friday, this reporter visited
the office of Public Information [DCPI] on the 13th floor
of Police Plaza to ask Deputy Commissioner for Public
Information Paul Browne — for the third time—
whether, as Schoolcraft has charged in his lawsuit ,
Browne accompanied Chief Marino and the officers
who dragged Schoolcraft from his Queens home off to
Jamaica Hospital, where he was kept in a psychiatric
ward for six days.
If Browne was in fact there, shouldn’t he, along with
Mauriello and Marino, be investigated for retaliating
against Schoolcraft?
DCPI’s chief factotum, Lieut. Gene Whyte, said that
Browne was out. Asked whether Browne’s deputy,
Inspector Kim Royster was in, Whyte busied himself in
her office, made a phone call, then returned to say that
she, too, was out.
Shortly afterwards, a sergeant in charge of building
security informed Your Humble Servant that, unless he
had a formal appointment, he could no longer visit the
13th floor.
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Copyright © 2010 Leonard Levitt

2/23/2016 10:07 PM