New York, NY – April 21, 2025 — The NYPD’s inner circle of political influence and retaliatory control is now at the center of a sweeping discrimination lawsuit filed by Lieutenant Emelio C. Rodriques, a 21-year veteran of the force who alleges that he was punished for standing up to misconduct and refusing to stay silent in the face of corruption. Filed in New York County Supreme Court, the Verified Complaint accuses the City of New York and multiple senior NYPD officials of race and gender discrimination, a hostile work environment, and retaliation in violation of the New York State and City Human Rights Laws.
Rodriques, who is Black and of Jamaican descent, was appointed in 2023 as the Integrity Control Officer (ICO) of the 34th Precinct in Washington Heights. The position is designed to ensure ethical compliance and accountability within the command. But according to the complaint, the role quickly placed him at odds with a robust network of officers led by Commanding Officer Aneudy Castillo, Executive Officer Erickson Peralta, and Special Operations Lieutenant Michael J. Disanto—supervisors who, the lawsuit alleges, engaged in systemic corruption and retaliated against him for refusing to participate.
A Culture of Selective Enforcement and Political Protection
At the heart of the lawsuit is a disturbing allegation: that law enforcement at the 34th Precinct was not guided by public safety or departmental policy, but by private interest and political favoritism. The complaint identifies James Caban, the twin brother of then–Police Commissioner Edward A. Caban, as a central figure in what Rodriques calls a “protection racket” operating inside the NYPD. According to the complaint, Castillo and James Caban maintained a covert alliance in which precinct enforcement decisions—including which businesses to target and which to ignore—were shaped by Caban’s personal relationships and undisclosed interests.
Rodriques alleges that nightlife venues and businesses in Washington Heights with ties to James Caban were categorically insulated from enforcement. Officers were instructed to disregard complaints, avoid making arrests, and even suppress 311 calls involving these locations. When officers attempted to do their jobs, they were overruled. Castillo, often from his own home, would call precinct supervisors to ensure that enforcement was halted. Officers who complied were rewarded; those who questioned the directives were marginalized.
According to the lawsuit, this secret arrangement was not only known to Castillo’s leadership team but also enforced as policy. When Rodriques raised concerns about this illegal conduct, he was met not with internal review but with hostility.
Retaliation Begins: From ICO to Target
Rodriques’s refusal to participate in what he described as unlawful favoritism made him a liability to his command. Instead of being praised for upholding NYPD values, he was excluded from meetings, reassigned, denied overtime, and ultimately stripped of his responsibilities as an ICO. His authority eroded, and his professional standing was targeted.
The retaliation deepened when Castillo and his lieutenants began referring to themselves as “the mafia.” This was not hyperbole. According to the Verified Complaint, Rodriques was warned that if he had a problem with one of them, “he had a problem with the entire family.” That family, the lawsuit alleges, included other supervisors and insiders who viewed loyalty to Castillo, rather than the law, as the top priority. For Rodriques, the message was clear: integrity had become a threat to power.
The Overtime Racket and Financial Retaliation
The Verified Complaint further details a scheme of financial misconduct involving fraudulent overtime assignments. While favored officers like Lieutenant Disanto and his driver, Officer Vincent Bracco, were allegedly guaranteed at least 40 hours of overtime per month—regardless of actual duty—Rodriques was deliberately excluded from these opportunities, despite his rank, qualifications, and availability.
Even worse, overtime codes designated for public safety deployments, such as responses to Israeli protest-related threats, were repurposed to pay insiders without justification. Disanto was promoted to Lieutenant Special Assignment, not based on merit, but as a reward for loyalty to Castillo’s leadership. Meanwhile, Rodriques’s overtime was withheld, and he was systematically denied professional development opportunities as further punishment for his resistance.
Weaponized Psychological Review and Medical Harassment
In a move reminiscent of NYPD’s historical use of psychological referrals to silence whistleblowers—especially Black and Caribbean officers—Rodriques was ordered to submit to repeated evaluations by Psychological Services. Despite having no history of mental health concerns and no incidents that would justify such a referral, he was stripped of his firearm and reassigned to restricted duty. The psychological review, the lawsuit asserts, was not intended to protect him or the public. It was a weapon wielded to discredit and isolate him.
The harassment continued while Rodriques was on approved medical leave for a serious cardiac condition. Castillo repeatedly called him, accusing him of “playing sick” and demanding that he work from home, even though such demands directly violated his treating physician’s instructions. On several occasions, Castillo launched profanity-laced tirades during these calls, which were loud enough for Rodriques’s ten-year-old child to overhear, causing emotional distress that extended beyond the officer to his family.
Public Disclosure Forces Sudden Reinstatement
On February 13, 2025, Rodriques filed a formal Charge of Discrimination with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In that charge, he outlined the racial and gender discrimination, hostile work environment, and retaliatory abuse he had endured. Two days later, he gave an interview to the New York Post detailing the allegations. The article went public on February 15, 2025, and within days—after nearly a year of unexplained restricted duty and coerced psychological evaluation—Rodriques was suddenly and quietly restored to full duty.
No explanation was ever provided for his prior restriction, and no findings were issued to justify the psychological referral. The lawsuit contends that the timing of this abrupt reinstatement underscores the retaliatory nature of the NYPD’s actions—and its desire to avoid public scrutiny.
Retaliation Escalates: The Ortiz Lawsuit and Internal Complaint
Within four days of the New York Post article’s publication, Sergeant Christina Ortiz filed a civil defamation lawsuit and internal discrimination complaint against Rodriques. Ortiz, who the lawsuit alleges had engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship with Lieutenant Disanto inside 34th Precinct offices, claimed that Rodriques defamed her. But the lawsuit sees the filing as something more: a retaliatory strike, filed at the exact moment Rodriques was gaining public and legal support.
According to the Verified Complaint, Ortiz was never investigated for her misconduct. No questions were asked about the evidence left behind in precinct offices, including broken nails and the abandonment of her domestic violence unit responsibilities. Instead, Ortiz was promoted to the Internal Affairs Bureau, the very unit responsible for investigating misconduct like her own.
The complaint argues that the department’s failure to review Ortiz’s claims, coupled with her promotion, reveals the NYPD’s willingness to protect insiders and weaponize legal processes to silence dissenters.
A Lawsuit for Accountability, Not Just Relief
Lieutenant Rodriques’s lawsuit asserts ten causes of action under the New York State and New York City Human Rights Laws. These include race discrimination, gender discrimination, hostile work environment, and retaliation for protected activity. Two distinct causes of action are also dedicated to retaliatory abuse of legal and internal processes, specifically naming the City of New York and Ortiz for filing a baseless lawsuit and internal complaint shortly after Rodriques’s EEOC charge and media disclosures.
The complaint names Edward A. Caban, the former Police Commissioner, as a defendant, not solely for his familial relationship to James Caban, but also for his institutional inaction. According to the lawsuit, Caban knew or should have known about the protection racket operating within the 34th Precinct, yet took no steps to intervene. His silence, the complaint asserts, was not neutrality but ratification. And it was under his leadership that Rodriques’s career was nearly destroyed for doing his job.
A Broader Call for Structural Change
According to attorney Eric Sanders, the case is about far more than one officer’s mistreatment. It is a window into how the NYPD preserves power by protecting misconduct, retaliating against whistleblowers, and weaponizing internal procedures against officers who speak up. Rodriques, Sanders emphasizes, is the kind of officer the public wants: ethical, observant, and committed to fairness. Yet for trying to uphold the law, he was punished by the very institution charged with enforcing it.
“This is not just a hostile work environment,” Sanders said. “It is a retaliatory, coercive culture that treats integrity as a threat. Lieutenant Rodriques followed the rules. He did the right thing. And for that, his reputation, career, and health were attacked. This lawsuit seeks justice not only for him, but for every officer who has been told to ‘shut up or be silenced.’”
The Verified Complaint seeks compensatory and punitive damages, declaratory relief, and structural change. It calls for a full accounting of NYPD’s internal retaliation practices, an independent review of political interference in enforcement decisions, and reform of psychological referral protocols to prevent future abuse.
As the litigation progresses, the case is expected to shed light on long-standing issues within the NYPD’s command culture—problems that cannot be resolved through training alone but require transparency, courage, and an unwavering commitment to justice.
Contact:
For media inquiries, legal commentary, or to support Mr. Andino’s case, contact:
The Sanders Firm, P.C.
30 Wall Street, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10005
Phone: 212-652-2782
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Read the Verified Complaint