NYPD allegedly destroyed evidence showing they issued 850,000 bogus summons to fill quotas

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Attorney Elinor Sutton is seeking sanctions against the city and the NYPD after bringing forth evidence that showed the police and the city lawyers destroyed evidence that would have shown the issued hundreds of thousands of bogus summonses.

For example, city lawyers have not turned over even one email from former Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly or former Chief of Department Joseph Esposito from the last eight years related to summonses.

“It is simply not tenable that Commissioner Kelly and Chief Esposito did not — in the entire period of 2007 through the present — write or receive emails using terms” related to the word “summons,” Sutton writes.

But Sutton says there is more.

She says Police Lt. Stevelle Brown deleted text messages that would have shown he denied a cop time off because the officer failed to meet the quota Brown had implemented for traffic summonses.

Another text from Sgt. Carty shows an officer being admonished for not meeting the quota: “We missed seat belt number by 30 last week unacceptable. if need be u guys will go with me 2 traffic stat 2 explain why u missed.”

Emails from Capt. Andrew Benjamin also show him admonishing top overtime workers for lack of arrests. “This has to stop it is ridiculous to have 50 + hours with only one arrest,” Benjamin wrote.

All Sutton’s evidence had to be obtained from whistleblowers and other means and was not provided by the department or city lawyers.

“The spoliation of this evidence clearly demonstrates Defendants’ bad-faith, grossly negligent, or at least, negligent destruction of relevant documents,” Sutton writes.

“The (evidence) production confirms what plaintiffs feared but defendants have repeatedly denied: Defendants have destroyed evidence that is unquestionably relevant to this matter.”