Former police officer who wrongfully arrested a black man gets 5 years

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Officer Michael Daragjati who falsely arrested a black Staten Island man was sentenced to nearly five years in prison.  The white officer was found to have lied about the happenings of the April 2011 arrest. The Wall Street Journal reports:

A former police officer who falsely arrested a black Staten Island man was sentenced to almost five years in jail Friday.

Officer Michael Daragjati, who is white, was given the stiff sentence for claiming in a police report that the 31-year-old man resisted arrest last April after he complained about being stopped and frisked and for an unrelated extortion.

Daragjati, 33 years old — who later said he “fried” the man in a taped conversation, using a racial epithet — pleaded guilty in January to extortion and a civil rights violation.

Calling Friday a “day of sadness and tragedy,” U.S. District Judge William Kuntz said Daragjati had chances to change his behavior but chose not to – he has had two civilian complaints and three civil suits filed against him, all by black men. Two of the civil suits were settled by the city. One is still pending.

“You methodically destroyed your career,” Kuntz said. “You never stumbled over your career. You kicked it to the curb.”

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