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Officer Who Disclosed Police Misconduct Settles Suit

Adrian Schoolcraft cited misconduct at the 81st Precinct.Credit...Richard Perry/The New York Times

Adrian Schoolcraft, a New York City police officer who secretly recorded his superiors at his Brooklyn precinct and disclosed the manipulation of crime reports, will receive $600,000 as part of a settlement reached with the city on Tuesday over his arrest and forced hospitalization.

The federal suit, which included allegations of a quota system at the Police Department, rampant misconduct in the taking of crime reports and a culture of retaliation against whistle-blowers, was filed in 2010 and had been about to go to trial.

In the suit, Officer Schoolcraft claimed his civil rights had been violated during an arrest on Oct. 31, 2009, and that he was kept for six days at a psychiatric ward at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center. The arrest and hospitalization were ordered, he said, by his bosses as retaliation for his disclosures, which were first publicized in The Daily News.

Officer Schoolcraft, 40, agreed to the amount, in addition to back pay and benefits from October 2009 through the end of this year.

“We are pleased that we were able to reach a just and fair resolution of this dispute with Adrian Schoolcraft,” the city’s Law Department said in a statement. “The settlement should not be construed as an admission that the city or any city employee engaged in wrongdoing.”

The settlement does not cover portions of the suit involving Jamaica Hospital and two doctors in its psychiatric ward who treated Officer Schoolcraft against his will. That case is set to go to trial next month.

Nathaniel B. Smith, a lawyer for Officer Schoolcraft, declined to comment, citing the continuing litigation against the hospital.

Officer Schoolcraft, in his suit, alleged a “coordinated and concentrated effort” by high-ranking police officials to silence him after he began reporting to the department’s Internal Affairs Bureau about officers ignoring or altering crime complaints, as well as other misconduct. He made furtive recordings inside the precinct station house, at roll calls and during his forcible arrest.

The Police Department began several inquiries into the allegations made by Officer Schoolcraft about actions at the 81st Precinct in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The investigations led to internal charges against some of the officers involved, including the former commander of the precinct, Deputy Inspector Steven Mauriello. He was among 10 officers named in Officer Schoolcraft’s suit.

“We were looking forward to going to trial,” said Walter A. Kretz, Jr., a lawyer for Inspector Mauriello, who had filed a counterclaim against Officer Schoolcraft. “My client’s story has not been told publicly. So we’re disappointed that it won’t be told in that forum.”

Officer Schoolcraft had been suspended without pay since his arrest.

A correction was made on 
Oct. 7, 2015

An article last Wednesday about a settlement reached by New York City and a police officer, Adrian Schoolcraft, over his 2009 arrest and forced hospitalization misidentified the newspaper that first reported Officer Schoolcraft’s accusations. It is The Daily News — not The Village Voice, which reported on the audio recordings Officer Schoolcraft made.

A correction was made on 
Oct. 29, 2015

Because of an editing error, an article on Sept. 30 about a settlement in the case of Officer Adrian Schoolcraft over his arrest and forced hospitalization in 2009 after he made allegations of misconduct at his Brooklyn precinct misstated some of the terms of the settlement. Besides receiving $600,000 from New York City, Officer Schoolcraft will also receive back pay and benefits from 2009 until the end of this year. The settlement does not exclude the back pay and benefits.

How we handle corrections

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 22 of the New York edition with the headline: Officer Settles Suit Over Whistle-Blowing . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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