New York City’s tab for police misconduct settlements: Nearly $800 million since 2019

New York City paid more than $117 million last year to settle police misconduct lawsuits in cases ranging from the violent arrests of protesters in 2020 to bad police work that led to wrongful convictions in the 1980s, according to a newly published analysis of city data. The largest settlements last year, totaling $24.1 million, went to two men who spent more than 20 years in prison after they were wrongly arrested and convicted for a fatal 1986 robbery in midtown Manhattan robbery. The analysis, released Monday by the nonprofit public defender organization The Legal Aid Society, comes as the nation’s largest city faces a $5.4 billion budget shortfall.