ABOVE THE LAW

NYPD Accused of Hiding Summonses

And destroying email evidence.

The NYPD has been destroying evidence in a high-stakes case alleging bogus summonses, according to documents filed in a Manhattan federal court. A lawyer in a class-action case involving some 850,000 summonses that were allegedly issued just to meet quotas says the police department is refusing to turn over any information from former Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly or former Chief of Department Joseph Esposito about the citations. “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,’” attorney Elinor Sutton wrote. Other NYPD officials allegedly destroyed evidence demanding that cops meet summons quotas, Sutton says, because she obtained the evidence from whistleblowers.