These exonerations were part of a larger group of 378 felony and misdemeanor dismissals that occurred after the 13 officers involved in these cases were convicted of their own crimes. In the overwhelming majority of these cases, the crimes committed by the officers took place after the arrests of these defendants. That meant the officer misconduct couldn’t be considered as impeachment evidence.

But Kings County District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said the cases needed to be dismissed because he no longer had confidence in the integrity of the convictions. A typical response by the district attorney’s office to a motion to dismiss said: “The People responded that they have not identified any information or evidence indicative of innocence or of fabricated evidence and that probable cause existed for defendant’s arrest,” but that the motion needed to be granted “in the interests of justice, which includes enhancing community trust in the criminal justice system and the proper preservation and prioritization of limited prosecutorial and judicial resources and pursuant to prosecutorial discretion.

“Credibility and honesty are at the heart of the justice system, and we cannot improve community trust without adhering to the highest ethical standards,” Gonzalez said in announcing the dismissals on September 7, 2022.

In four of the cases, involving former Officer Richard Danese, the misconduct took place before the defendants were arrested. Danese was arrested on March 3, 2008 and charged with unlawful imprisonment. According to his indictment, on the previous Halloween, Danese and his partner claimed that a 14-year-old boy was egging cars and punished him by placing him in their cruiser, stripping him down to his underwear, and then abandoning him in a desolate part of Staten Island.

Danese pled guilty to disorderly conduct in 2009, but remained on the police force until 2021. Later, the city settled a lawsuit brought by the boy and his family for $150,000. Available records don’t say when the four persons tied to Danese were arrested or their specific charges, but the district attorney’s office said that almost all the 378 dismissals were for minor drug offenses and traffic violations.

Separately, 15 of the dismissals involved arrests made by Sasha Cordoba. She pled guilty to perjury in Manhattan for giving false testimony to a grand jury and was also convicted in Queens of a crime related to lying about what she observed of a drug deal. Click here for more information on exonerations tied to Cordoba and her former partner, Kevin Desormeau.

Similarly, 43 of the dismissals involved arrests made by Oscar Sandino. He pled guilty in 2010 to deprivation of civil rights of two women in custody. Click here for more information on exonerations tied to Sandino.

The other 10 former police officers tied to the dismissals were convicted of a wide range of crimes, including larceny, perjury, and receiving bribes.

Former Officer Jerry Bowens, tied to 134 of the dismissals, pled guilty to murder and falsifying business records. He worked in the New York Police Department’s Brooklyn South Narcotics Division.

All of these cases grew out of the indictment of former NYPD Detective Joseph Franco in 2019 on perjury and misconduct charges. After Franco’s arrest, in April 2021, Gonzalez and the Manhattan district attorney vacated nearly 200 convictions. The district attorney in the Bronx later dismissed 257 Franco cases.

On May 3, 2021, a coalition of innocence and defender organizations wrote New York’s five district attorneys and the city’s special narcotics prosecutor to ask these officials to use the Franco vacations as a springboard to further action. They asked the prosecutors to review cases involving 20 officers who had been convicted of crimes, and to vacate convictions in cases where the officers played an “essential role” in the arrest and prosecution. The dismissals in Brooklyn were part of this review.

— Ken Otterbourg