Police chief who alleges mayor told him to lie about Daniel Prude case reaches settlement
La’Ron Singletary will get $75,000 from the city of Rochester, New York, and health benefits he would have received for 24 years had he retired.
The former Rochester, New York police chief, who alleged that he was fired after its mayor instructed him to lie during an investigation into the death of a man following serious restraint by officers, has settled his lawsuit with the upstate city.
La’Ron Singletary was the chief of police in March 2020 when Daniel Prude died a week after being pinned by officers. According to The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, his official cause of death was asphyxiation. However, he also had PCP in his system.
Prude‘s death sparked protests in the city, contributed to Singletary being fired, and its former mayor, Lovely Warren, losing a 2021 reelection battle. Warren ultimately left office early, resigning after taking a plea deal on unrelated state crimes, including campaign finance violations, a gun charge, and child endangerment, according to The New York Times.
Singletary will receive $75,000 cash and the restoration of health benefits he would have gotten for 24 years had he retired, which was his intention before he was fired by Warren.
The report notes that the dollar value of the health benefits is about $600,000.
According to Singletary in a December report, Warren “wanted me to portray a story that just was not true and asking that I omit certain relevant facts when I testified before the City Council investigation” into Prude’s death.
In a statement, the city said that Singletary’s “settlement does not constitute an admission of wrongdoing on the part of the City.”
In an interview with The Democrat & Chronicle, Singletary noted that his lawsuit — which alleged wrongful termination, a hostile work environment and defamation — was not about breaking the bank for the city of Rochester.”
“It was about getting something back for me that was wrongly taken from me by the city of Rochester,” he said.
Singletary is currently running for Congress as a Republican. His official bio says he has a “passion for servant leadership and is eager to reform systems that have been plaguing [Rochester] residents.” It asserts that “empowering our families with school choice, improving our educational system and expanding business opportunities to help our residents thrive” is why he is running.
His platform is reportedly focused on issues of public safety, the 2nd Amendment, education, federal spending, immigration, foreign policy, health care, taxes and the economy.
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