The Bronx District Attorney’s Office has released some of its internal files on police dishonesty—the first D.A.’s office in the city make such records available to the public.
The documents came in response to a Freedom of Information Law request by WNYC. The records include references to media articles and dozens of findings from judges discrediting or casting doubt on officers’ testimony.
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Cynthia Conti-Cook, a Legal Aid staff attorney who reviewed the records, lauded the release. She said she hopes it will be the first in a series of unprecedented disclosures.
“The release of these records is another important step towards transparency,” she said. “But it is not the last step. We must continue to demand more public access to internal police misconduct information to allow the public to hold police and the administrations that protect them accountable.”
Christopher Dunn, legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the release could be the tip of the iceberg on police dishonesty.
“This revelation suggests there may be large numbers of police officers that prosecutors know are not reliable,” he said. “This is exactly the type of information the public must know about. If they don’t, it just calls our entire system into doubt .”
In April, WNYC broke news that all five borough prosecutors are compiling secret databases tracking police officers with questionable credibility. The in-house lists contain lawsuit records and findings of dishonesty from judges and police review bodies. Prosecutors maintain these records because they are legally obligated to turn over information that may undermine police witnesses’ trustworthiness.
The Bronx D.A. released 11 pages of documents with heavy redactions, citing privacy and other exemptions from the public records law. But WNYC was able to identify a few officers whose credibility issues were previously kept secret from most of New York City’s defense bar.
One of the records is a May 28, 2019 email from federal prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York to the Bronx D.A.’s office, which is also in the Southern District.
NYPD officers often work with federal prosecutors, especially on gun cases. The email names five Bronx and Manhattan officers whose credibility was challenged by federal judges between January and May of this year.
Before now, only one of those officers was known to the Legal Aid Society, New York’s largest public defender organization, which has been building its own officer misconduct database for years in concert with other defender organizations.
One of the previously unknown findings of dishonesty concerns two police officers, Jonathan Cannizzaro and Donovan Bunch.
Around 10 p.m. on July 4th of last year, Cannizzaro, Bunch and another officer were cruising down Lexington Avenue in East Harlem, when they saw a black Jeep Wrangler changing lanes without signaling, according to court records reviewed by WNYC.
The officers pulled the car over. Officer Cannizzaro testified that when he approached the Jeep, its front windows were already down. He then asked the driver to lower his tinted rear windows, at which point he noticed a “strong smell of marijuana”.
Cannizzaro then began to search the car. On the driver’s side by the pedals, the officer found a closed jar containing what he believed to be marijuana residue. In the backseat, he found a black backpack with a silver revolver inside.
At an April 3, 2019 hearing, however, the officers’ story came under fire.
Federal prosecutors said they never got any lab reports on the residue in the jar or results from a drug test Cannizzaro said he conducted at the precinct, according to a transcript of the hearing. Prosecutors could only cite an evidence voucher form, filled out by Cannizzaro himself, claiming the marijuana residue had tested positive.
The defense pointed out that during the stop, which was captured on body camera, police immediately referred to an empty beer bottle in the car, but did not mention the smell of marijuana. The judge noted that an empty beer bottle would not justify a car search.
Since the closed jar with alleged marijuana residue was in the front, and the car’s front windows were open, the defense questioned why Cannizzaro said he only smelled marijuana after he asked the driver to lower his rear windows.
On the stand, fellow officer Donovan Bunch claimed he smelled a “very, strong odor,” which he likened to a “burnt marijuana cigarette smell.” But police found no marijuana, cigarettes or otherwise, in the back of the car or on the street.
Following their testimony, Judge Colleen McMahon—the chief judge in the Southern District—suppressed the handgun evidence and ripped into the officers’ story.
“I believe that the officers lied under oath on the stand when they said that they smelled marijuana and that that is what occasioned the search of the car,” she said to prosecutors, according to the transcript. “All right? That is a credibility finding. You're stuck with it.”
Federal prosecutors dropped the gun case and eventually notified the NYPD and the Bronx D.A., which is in their jurisdiction, of the finding. The Manhattan D.A. and the U.S. Attorney’s office declined to comment on whether federal prosecutors also shared the credibility finding with the Manhattan D.A. In a statement, a SDNY spokesman noted that “in some instances our office may communicate directly with another prosecuting office regarding such matters.”
Court records reviewed by public defenders at the Legal Aid Society show that Canizzaro and Bunch continued to make arrests. According to Legal Aid, one of those arrests by Officer Bunch resulted in a guilty plea, which the defense counsel agreed to without knowledge of the judge’s dishonesty finding.
Conti-Cook said the plea underscores why all prosecutors need to release their officer credibility records. “Had the Bronx D.A.’s office made this information public then our attorneys in Manhattan would have been able to give their clients informed advice about their likelihood of success at a hearing or trial if this officer testified,” she said.
Officer Bunch did not respond to WNYC’s request for comment. In a brief phone call, Officer Cannizzaro defended the car stop and argued the judge was hellbent on killing the gun case.
“I think she’s a complete nutbag,” he said, referring to Judge McMahon. “I’ve had cases where I smelled weed, didn’t find anything, and it stuck,” he continued, referring to charges related to other contraband found through the search. He declined to answer further questions, noting he needed to check with his union representative about talking to the press. Judge McMahon declined WNYC’s request for comment.
The NYPD did not respond to WNYC’s questions about the two officers, but said it has an internal committee to review adverse credibility findings, and to determine whether officers need further training or investigation. The Police Benevolent Association also declined to comment.
In addition to the email from the Southern District, the Bronx D.A. records also include a list of thirty-nine other officers whose testimony was discredited by federal judges between 2011 and 2019. The Bronx D.A. redacted twenty-one of those officers’ names, saying they were discredited in case records that are now sealed.
The redactions raise the possibility that after an officer lies in a case and is caught by a judge, the case could be thrown out and sealed and the officer’s name would remain secret from the public because of his or her own misconduct.
Andrew Stengel, a criminal defense and civil rights attorney suing for the Manhattan D.A.’s internal officer credibility list, criticized the redactions. “It is not proper to withhold information related to the police officer’s credibility, which would include the officer’s name,” he said in a phone call. “If a prosecutor knows about a dishonest police officer and the related case is sealed, it is not like the prosecutors knowledge is sealed. The public’s right to know is paramount.”
Conti-Cook, the Legal Aid staff attorney, also called for the release of all the officers’ names.
“Sealing prevents disclosure of records, not lying officers’ names,” she said. “Without names, our systems of checks and balances fails and yet again police evade accountability.”
The Legal Aid Society is calling on District Attorneys to review their files for any prosecutions where officers with previously unknown credibility findings played a role.
In Philadelphia, after the District Attorney’s office released a list containing the names of just 66 officers, public defenders petitioned to review over six thousand cases potentially tainted by the officers’ involvement.
Earlier this year, in response to a FOIL by Andrew Stengel, the private attorney, the Manhattan D.A. released disclosures letters sent to defense attorneys based on its internal database, but not records from the database itself. In a statement, Stengel called for the Bronx D.A. to release all files it has on officers with questionable credibility, even if such a release could throw scores of ongoing prosecutions and past convictions into question.
“Defendants are in the dark about their accusers in violation of the constitution,” he said. “The only appropriate consequence to consider is the harm to a defendant who doesn’t receive a fair trial.”
The Bronx D.A. did not immediately respond to WNYC’s request for comment.
If you work or have worked in a prosecutors’ office or law enforcement agency, email reporter George Joseph at [email protected]. You can also text him tips, via the encrypted phone app Signal, or otherwise, at 929-486-4865.
