FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Verified Petition challenges the NYPD’s incomplete Trial Decision Library, undisclosed disciplinary settlements, and inability of the public to determine how serious misconduct allegations actually ended

NEW YORK, July 25, 2026 — Eric Sanders, Esq., of the Sanders Firm, P.C., has announced that Salvatore J. Greco, individually and as host and publisher of The Sal Greco Show, has commenced a hybrid Article 78 and declaratory-judgment proceeding against the City of New York and New York City Police Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch challenging what the petition describes as the NYPD’s established practice of providing the public with only a partial and incomplete account of police disciplinary proceedings.

The proceeding does not ask the court to determine whether any individual NYPD employee committed misconduct or whether any particular disciplinary penalty was appropriate. Instead, it asks whether the City and the Police Commissioner may publicly promote transparency while failing to identify and disclose entire categories of final disciplinary outcomes—including negotiated settlements, pleas, stipulations, command disciplines, closure determinations, omitted trial decisions, matrix-deviation records, and related employment actions.

At the center of the case is a straightforward public-accountability question:

What happened to the disciplinary matters the NYPD did not try publicly?

The NYPD maintains several public-facing disciplinary resources, including its Officer Profile Portal, Trial Decision Library, annual discipline reports, and reports concerning departures from the Department’s disciplinary penalty guidelines. The Department describes those systems as transparency measures intended to permit public examination of police discipline and final Police Commissioner determinations.

But according to the Verified Petition, the NYPD’s own public statements establish that its Trial Decision Library is incomplete.

The Department states that the library contains disciplinary decisions from 2008 to the present while simultaneously acknowledging that it is still working to include additional decisions. The NYPD does not identify which decisions remain missing, how many have been omitted, why they are unavailable, or when they will be published. Nor does it provide a complete index identifying every disciplinary trial, every Trial Commissioner report, every final Police Commissioner determination, and the public availability of each corresponding decision.

The petition alleges that the incompleteness extends far beyond missing trial decisions.

In calendar year 2024, the NYPD reported 93 trial dispositions and 141 negotiated settlements among disciplinary matters submitted through the Office of the Deputy Commissioner of Trials. Settlements therefore represented approximately 60 percent of the combined settlement and trial dispositions reported for that year.

Yet the NYPD maintains no public repository equivalent to the Trial Decision Library for matters resolved through negotiation.

The Department’s public systems do not provide uniform access to complete executed settlement agreements, pleas, stipulations, final approvals, charges resolved, factual bases, penalties imposed, supporting recommendations, matrix-deviation records, or orders implementing transfers, reassignments and other employment consequences.

In practical terms, the NYPD publishes selected disciplinary trials while withholding equivalent access to the larger category of matters resolved through settlement.

“The NYPD cannot claim transparency while allowing the procedural method selected by the Department to determine whether a disciplinary outcome becomes visible to the public,” said Eric Sanders, Esq., attorney for Greco. “If a case proceeds to trial, the public may receive a written decision. If a case is negotiated behind closed doors, the public may receive only a summary—or nothing sufficient to explain what was admitted, what was dismissed, what penalty was imposed, whether the Discipline Matrix was followed, and what employment consequences actually resulted. That is not a complete disciplinary system. It is selective disclosure.”

The case arises from the legal framework enacted after the 2020 repeal of Civil Rights Law § 50-a, the statute that had previously imposed categorical confidentiality upon specified police personnel records.

Public Officers Law § 86(6) now broadly defines “law enforcement disciplinary records” as records created in furtherance of a disciplinary proceeding. The definition expressly includes complaints, allegations, charges, the disposition of any disciplinary proceeding, and final written opinions or memoranda supporting the disposition and discipline imposed. Public Officers Law § 86(7) provides that a disciplinary proceeding begins with the commencement of an investigation and includes subsequent hearings or disciplinary actions.

The petition alleges that those definitions do not depend upon whether the NYPD chose a trial, settlement, plea, stipulation, command discipline, resignation, retirement, administrative closure, or another mechanism.

A disciplinary record does not lose its statutory character merely because no formal charges were ultimately served. It does not cease to be a disciplinary record because the accused employee retired or resigned. And it does not become exempt simply because the NYPD has not uploaded it to a public database.

The petition expressly recognizes that the NYPD may make lawful, particularized redactions required or authorized by statute. It does not demand public release of protected medical information, sealed records, personal identifying information, information identifying victims of sexual offenses, or other lawfully exempt material. It challenges categorical nonpublication and the absence of a complete accounting showing which records exist, which have been disclosed, which remain omitted, and how serious matters were ultimately resolved.

The Verified Petition also focuses upon the NYPD’s public representations concerning fairness and disciplinary equity.

The Department’s 2024 Discipline Report states that discipline should be administered fairly and equitably and defines equity as holding employees accountable regardless of rank, demographic characteristics, assignment, or tenure. But aggregate statistics concerning race, gender, trials, settlements and matrix deviations do not permit meaningful case-level comparison of employees accused of similar misconduct.

The public cannot determine whether employees with comparable allegations and disciplinary histories were offered comparable settlements. It cannot determine whether one employee’s charges were reduced while another employee was required to proceed to trial. It cannot determine whether departures from the Discipline Matrix increased or reduced punishment, whether transfers and reassignments were imposed consistently, or whether rank, command influence, assignment, tenure or institutional relationships affected the final outcome.

The NYPD’s calendar-year 2025 matrix-deviation report illustrates the problem.

That report identifies 36 deviations among 1,021 cases involving 1,150 respondents. But it does not identify the underlying cases, the misconduct involved, the presumptive matrix penalties, the penalties actually imposed, whether the departures increased or reduced discipline, the reasons for the deviations, or whether the matters were resolved through settlement or trial.

The petition does not contend that New York City Administrative Code § 14-186 independently requires the NYPD’s annual report to identify every deviation case. It alleges that aggregate compliance with the reporting requirement does not erase the separate status of the underlying disciplinary records under the Public Officers Law.

“Thirty-six deviations is not meaningful transparency when the public cannot determine what the deviations were,” Sanders said. “A percentage does not reveal whether the Police Commissioner increased discipline, reduced discipline, departed from precedent, treated comparable employees differently, or approved a negotiated result that would not withstand public scrutiny. Aggregate numbers cannot substitute for the underlying records.”

Greco brings the proceeding as a podcaster, journalist, commentator, and public publisher whose reporting regularly addresses NYPD management, employee misconduct, disciplinary practices, discrimination, public integrity and governmental accountability. The petition alleges that the incomplete disclosure system directly impairs his ability to investigate reported misconduct, identify final outcomes, compare similarly situated matters, evaluate potential favoritism or disparate treatment, and report accurately upon the exercise of police disciplinary authority.

The pleading includes a representative table identifying several serious-misconduct matters for which the NYPD’s public systems allegedly fail to provide a complete and traceable outcome. The matters include reported timekeeping and payroll allegations, alleged private employment during NYPD-compensated hours, reported interference with an internal matter, an alleged alcohol-related arrest, hundreds of reported speeding violations, and alleged misuse of a Department vehicle.

The petition carefully states that those matters are pleaded upon information and belief solely to demonstrate the deficiencies of the NYPD’s public systems. Greco does not ask the court to decide whether the identified employees committed the reported conduct. The table instead shows that the public frequently cannot determine whether allegations were investigated, substantiated, charged, settled, adjudicated, administratively closed, or affected by resignation or retirement.

For example, the petition identifies reported allegations involving NYPD executive Richard S. Taylor concerning approximately 172 compensated hours allegedly not worked during 2024 and 2025. The matter was reportedly resolved through a negotiated disposition involving repayment of approximately $20,000, forfeiture or docking of time or pay, transfer and dismissal probation. But the petition alleges that no complete settlement, factual basis, final approval, matrix analysis, deviation rationale, or implementing transfer records are identifiable through the Department’s public systems.

The petition similarly identifies alleged timekeeping matters involving David Tzall and Matthew J. Graziano, both reportedly associated with the Health and Wellness Division and allegedly permitted to resign. According to the pleading, the public systems do not reveal whether the allegations were substantiated, charged, settled, administratively closed, resolved in connection with resignation, or accompanied by repayment or another consequence.

Additional representative matters include Robert O’Hare, Artan Kurtovic, James Giovansanti and former Deputy Chief William M. Viscardi. The petition alleges that the publicly available systems do not provide complete information concerning whether investigations occurred, what findings were made, whether charges were filed, what final dispositions were reached, and how retirement, reassignment restrictions or other administrative actions affected the proceedings.

The proceeding asserts four claims: mandamus to compel under CPLR 7803(1), error of law under CPLR 7803(3), arbitrary and capricious administrative action under CPLR 7803(3), and declaratory relief under CPLR 3001.

The petition alleges that negotiated and adjudicated dispositions perform the same ultimate governmental function: both resolve disciplinary matters and determine the discipline imposed under the authority of the Police Commissioner. It contends that no rational transparency basis exists for publishing selected trial decisions while omitting other trial decisions and withholding equivalent access to negotiated dispositions.

Greco seeks declarations confirming that negotiated settlements, pleas, stipulations, command disciplines, omitted trial decisions, investigative dispositions, matrix-deviation records and implementing orders fall within the statutory definition when created in furtherance of a disciplinary proceeding.

He also seeks an order requiring respondents to identify final disciplinary matters from June 12, 2020 forward; state whether final disposition records exist and are publicly available; provide a complete index of trial decisions and Police Commissioner determinations; treat nonexempt records consistently with New York’s disclosure laws; preserve relevant records and electronic data; and submit a reasonable plan for historical and prospective compliance.

The petition does not ask the court to design a website, dictate a particular database, or eliminate the NYPD’s ability to apply lawful exemptions. It recognizes that respondents may retain reasonable administrative discretion concerning format, sequencing, mechanics and timing.

What the Department may not do, the petition argues, is place entire categories of disciplinary records outside public view simply because the cases were settled, closed, omitted from a library, or ended when an employee resigned or retired.

“The public does not need another slogan about transparency,” Sanders said. “It needs a complete, traceable and legally compliant account of how the NYPD exercises disciplinary authority. The Department knows how many cases it settled. It knows which penalties departed from the matrix. It knows which employees resigned while matters were pending. It maintains the underlying case-management information. The issue is whether the public will finally be permitted to see how those cases actually ended.”

About The Sanders Firm, P.C.

The Sanders Firm, P.C. is a New York-based law firm focused on civil rights, immigration, employment discrimination, police misconduct, and other high-stakes matters. Its founder and president, Eric Sanders, Esq., is a retired NYPD officer who brings a rare inside perspective to the intersection of government power, public institutions, enforcement discretion, and constitutional accountability.

For more than twenty years, Sanders has counseled thousands of clients and handled complex matters involving police use of force, sexual harassment, retaliation, systemic discrimination, immigration consequences, and related civil-rights violations. He is widely recognized as a leading New York civil-rights attorney and a prominent voice on evidence-based policing, institutional accountability, equal justice, and rights-based immigration advocacy.

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