FREE CASE EVALUATION. The civil rights lawyers at Robins Kaplan have obtained over $80 million in verdicts and settlements for victims of unconstitutional governmental conduct and police brutality. We have successfully represented people in lawsuits involving a variety of claims, including arrests, seizures, use of deadly force, excessive force ...
· "The taxpayers are going to bear the brunt for the cost of police brutality," Sanford Rubenstein, a New York City-based civil attorney whose firm has represented families and victims of police brutality for over 35 years and collected millions of dollars in settlements.
· On the courthouse steps, acting U.S. Attorney Stephen Schenning said he's hopeful this case "will begin a long difficult process" of examining …
Benjamin Lloyd Crump (born October 10, 1969) is an American attorney who specializes in civil rights and catastrophic personal injury cases such as wrongful death lawsuits.His practice has focused on cases such as Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and George Floyd, the people poisoned during the Flint water crisis, and the plaintiffs behind the 2019 Johnson & Johnson baby …
Revealing police criminality stretching back to 2008, the four ex-detectives told jurors about everything from armed home invasions to staging fictitious crime scenes and routinely defrauding their department.
They testified that their supervisor, Sgt. Wayne Jenkins, a former amateur mixed-martial-arts fighter, told them to carry BB guns in case they needed to plant weapons, conspired with a crooked bail bondsman, and occasionally posed as a federal agent when shaking people down.
Last week, acting Police Commissioner Darryl DeSousa announced the creation of a Corruption Investigation Unit to probe not only the activities of the disbanded unit, but also that of a number of current officers whose names popped up during testimony.
2002–2014: Early career, Martin and Brown cases. In 2002, Crump represented the family of Genie McMeans, Jr., an African-American driver who died after being shot by a white state trooper.
In 2017 Crump announced the opening of a new law firm, Ben Crump Law, PLLC.
Crump demanded that dashboard video of the incident be released, threatening legal action and encouraging Attorney General Eric Holder to launch a federal probe. In October 2013, one of the arresting officers was charged with felony assault of Thomas, pleading not guilty.
In 2019, Crump partnered with law firm Pintas & Mullins to hold a number of rallies in Flint, Michigan for communities affected by the Flint water crisis. Also in 2019, Crump began representing a number of plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson alleging that the company's talc powder was directly related to said-plaintiffs' ovarian cancer diagnoses.
Crump, Benjamin L. "Ben Crump — the Man Who Represented the Families of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and Tamir Rice — Will Not Stop Fighting for Justice." NowThis, 2018.
Crump with U.S. Representative Terri Sewell on the 60th anniversary of the Montgomery bus boycott. In 2015, Crump represented the family of Antonio Zambrano-Montes, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who was killed by three policemen in Pasco, Washington.
In April 2021, Crump began representing the family of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old African American shot and killed by a Brooklyn Center Police Department officer.
Man accused of threatening to kill people at Islamic center because of ‘hatred for Muslims’
Diaz this summer pleaded guilty to bribery, drug trafficking and tax evasion, and Mara admitted to selling methamphetamine. Both are about to begin five-year federal prison sentences for their crimes.
Damacio Diaz pleaded guilty to bribery, drug trafficking and tax evasion. His partner, Patrick Mara, admitted to selling methamphetamine.
Diaz said that his time as a narcotics detective drove him to a life of drinking and that Magallanes, a drug dealer and a prominent member of the Mexican Mafia, became more friend than informant.
24 after he was sentenced to five years in prison for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.
Defense attorneys compared the Bakersfield situation to the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart scandal in the late 1990s, in which corrupt officers tainted cases. More than 100 convictions were overturned as a result.
Diaz would quickly implicate Mara and then suggest others were making money too.
Former Detective with the Carlisle Police Department Christopher Collare, age 52, was indicted by a federal grand jury on January 22, 2020, for bribery, drug distribution, fraud and making false statements. Collare used his official position to obtain sex from two women in exchange for agreeing to take actions in prosecutions.
This web page is a means for the public to be informed of the status of pending and recent cases of great and/or continuing public interest involving or related to public corruption. The web page information will be updated periodically.
Icker worked as a police officer for the Ashley Borough Police Department in December 2018. On December 3, 2018 and December 10, 2018, Icker, while acting under color of the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, willfully deprived two women of their liberty without due process of law, which includes the right to bodily integrity, by coercing the women into engaging in unwanted sexual contact with him .
On August 5, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit denied former Lackawanna County Commissioner’s latest appeal regarding his 2011 conviction on multiple public corruption charges. In a 26-page precedential opinion, the Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of U.S. District Court Judge A. Richard Caputo holding that the Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in McDonnell v. United States was not grounds to overturn Cordaro’s convictions.
Former Ashley Borough Police Officer Mark Icker, age 30, was sentenced on July 24, 2020, to 15 years' imprisonment. Icker previously pleaded guilty on November 26, 2019, to violating the civil rights of two females in his custody when he sexually assaulted. Icker worked as a police officer for the Ashley Borough Police Department in December 2018. On December 3, 2018 and December 10, 2018, Icker, while acting under color of the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, willfully deprived two women of their liberty without due process of law, which includes the right to bodily integrity, by coercing the women into engaging in unwanted sexual contact with him.
Edward Weidow, age 65, of Scranton, was charged on July 22, 2019, in a criminal information with making false statements to federal investigators in a public corruption investigation involving former Mayor of Scranton, William Courtright. The criminal information alleged that Weidow took cash from vendors and then transferred ...
Collare was also a task force officer with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and a member of the Cumberland County Drug Task Force. Collare is awaiting trial.
In 2000, rookie officer Keith Batt and his training officer Clarence Mabanag rampaged through West Oakland’s Black neighborhoods. The pair and other officers brutalized and planted drugs on suspects and filed false police reports resulting in wrongful convictions. On July 3, 2000, Batt resigned and blew the whistle on the misconduct he witnessed.
Valerga’s conduct was so egregious that investigators in his own department thought he should be punished to the full extent of the law. Sgt. James Rullamas , who helped investigate Valerga’s sexual misconduct, said in a 2007 court deposition that the former officer received “lenient” treatment from the legal system.
In November 2005, Valerga pleaded guilty to the charges, all misdemeanors. He was sentenced to 180 days in jail and three years of probation. The Alameda County Superior Court destroyed Valerga’s entire case file sometime after his probation ended.
The Oakland police fired Valerga after he was criminally charged. However, he was never formally investigated by its internal affairs division, nor did the department track down and interview all of his victims, according to depositions taken during the civil rights suit. As a result, the full extent of Valerga’s conduct remains unknown. The destruction of his court records means that there is no longer any public documentation of the criminal investigation against him, excluding media reports and a brief summary in the court’s online database.
But the Riders wasn’t the only criminal case file involving Oakland police corruption destroyed by the Alameda County Superior Court. At least two other cases identified by The Appeal—one involving officers Eric Richholt and Mark Neely Jr., the other involving Richard Valerga—have also been destroyed.
On July 3, 2000, Batt resigned and blew the whistle on the misconduct he witnessed. Mabanag and officers Jude Siapno and Matthew Hornung were tried in the case twice. In 2003, the first trial ended in a hung jury. The second trials of Mabanag and Siapno also ended in hung juries.
The Riders case is significant for police accountability in Oakland. Numerous other officers were named during the investigation and trial as having participated in similar abuses. However, they never faced criminal charges. Throughout the trials, the Oakland Police Department’s internal culture was examined in detail, as were political decisions by city leaders to undertake a “zero tolerance” crackdown on drug dealers, which community activists—and even the Oakland police union—blamed for stoking violence by street cops.
He worked with, and under, two prestigious prosecutors: Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff.
Enterprise members Bergrin, Jauregui, and Moran bribed and assisted in bribing M.P., who was to testify for the government against R.J. They did so by causing a third party, ‘M.C.,’ to participate in telephone conversations with M.P., after which they paid M.P. $3,000 in cash to change his/her testimony. “4.
He retained Bergrin in 2008 after being charged with state drug offenses. Bergrin reportedly told Esteves that “the only way to beat the case was if [Esteves] took care of the witnesses” on a list of those who the attorney believed was cooperating with the government.
Bergrin testified that he knew his previous colleague to have the reputation for telling truth and integrity. A judge described the unusual episode to Jacobson: “Here you have someone who is working for the government testifying against the government. This is what might be called a questionable career move.”.
has a long history of violent encounters with enemies “in and around Newark, New Jersey.” He told Jacobson that “someone got killed” and “they were trying to put it on me.” Charged with first degree murder, Clay D. told Jacobson “you can’t f ..k with that, so I got Paul.” Clay D. had been in Bergrin office just two minutes before the attorney looked him the eyes and told him there was only one witness who could hurt him. ”Okay, what are we going to do about this person”, Bergrin asked the Clay. “She’s a user, right? Why don’t we just give her a hot shot? Just stick her.”
When J.I. was arrested again, Bergrin took over the prostitution business, but he too was caught and charged in New York. Following Bergrin’s arrest for his role in the business, Jauregui solicited M.C.—i.e., the “third party” in Scheme Three—to murder a witness against Bergrin.
Bergrin has denied all the allegations. He elected to represent himself pro se at trial which began in early October 2011. In his October 17 opening statement, Bergrin told the jury this about the Kemo murder: “I never wanted, … never expected, … that one hair on Kemo’s head would be hurt.” He told jurors that he had only acted in the best interests of his client, Baskerville. “When I represent – was called … to represent William Baskerville, who was accused of a criminal offense, the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution said I had to represent him, that he deserved to be represented effectively. And that’s all I ever did in this case.” Bergrin conceded he had called Curry to inform him that Kemo was the “confidential witness” but he denied any malicious motives, saying the call was part of his “legal duty” to represent Baskerville. He denied ever saying “No Kemo, no case.”
Joseph Miedzianowski. Joseph Miedzianowski was a Chicago police officer labeled as the most corrupt cop. Miedzianowski served as both police officer and drug kingpin using his knowledge of the streets and gangs to shake down drug dealers.
Perez shot and framed an unarmed gang member during his tenure, and stole eight pounds of cocaine from an LAPD evidence locker. 2. Jon Burge. Jon Burge is a former Chicago Police Department detective who oversaw the torture of hundreds of Black men resulting in false confessions between 1972 and 1991.
Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa worked for the NYPD but in reality, they worked for the mafia. Caracappa was a member of the Organized Crime Homicide Unit investigating the very people he was working for.
In 2006, Eppolito and Caracappa were convicted of racketeering, obstruction of justice, extortion and eight counts of murder and conspiracy.
Although Burge was protected by the statute of limitations for his crimes, he was convicted for lying about the torture in January of this year.
Some police officers turn bad to make money through ripping off drug dealers and even dealing drugs themselves. Some try and cover up their own acts of brutality, murder and even torture.
Robert Gisevius, Kenneth Bowen, and Anthony Villavaso were members of the New Orleans police department during Hurricane Katrina. They were charged with first degree murder for killing seventeen-year-old James Brissette who was innocent and unarmed during Hurricane Katrina on ...
The police officers once held a suspect over an 18th floor balcony and used a steel bar to beat someone else in the head
The scheme ran from 2006 to 2012, when Officer Jeffrey Walker was arrested. He has since pleaded guilty and cooperated in the ensuing two-year probe. Walker and a colleague "stole and distributed a multi-kilo quantity of cocaine, like everyday drug dealers do," U.S. Attorney Zane Memeger said.
Brian McMonagle, a lawyer representing Liciardello, predicted they would all be exonerated and returned to duty.
The alleged shakedowns involved the seizure of as much as $210,000 at a time, along with three kilos of cocaine, Rolex watches and a Calvin Klein suit. The officers sometimes reported some of the cash on police reports, and other times reported nothing at all, the indictment said.