On an October night in 2014, an NYPD narcotics officer known as “Undercover 84” parked himself on a Lower East Side bench outside a housing project, and waited to buy some drugs.

The undercover’s plan followed the blueprint he had executed many times. With help from a user in the neighborhood, the undercover would wait outside the building for the dealer to come sell him crack. After he completed the transaction, Undercover 84 would give the signal, and his fellow officers from the NYPD’s South Manhattan Narcotics team would swoop in and make an arrest.

As Undercover 84 sat on that bench, 18-year-old Jawaun Fraser walked out of the building with a group of friends. What happened next would land Fraser in prison for two years, based on the testimony of the undercover officer and his NYPD colleagues.

Unbeknownst to Fraser and his attorneys, those officers had been sued dozens of times in civil court for false arrests and other constitutional violations against New Yorkers. The Manhattan DA’s office failed to mention the lawsuits at trial. Eventually, a judge ordered Fraser to be released.

Now, Fraser is suing the City of New York for millions of dollars.

“At trial, the jury deserved to know that these cops have been repeatedly accused of fabricating evidence. That didn’t happen,” Fraser’s attorney Matthew Wasserman told Gothamist.

The police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and the brutality committed by the NYPD during the subsequent protests against racist police violence, have spurred demands for more police accountability and transparency.

Fraser’s case raises questions that strike at the heart of these issues: why are New York City’s prosecutors still relying on the testimony of officers who have been repeatedly accused of misconduct? Are the prosecutors sharing enough information with criminal defendants, who face years in prison based on the word of an untrustworthy cop? And why are NYPD officers who cost the city millions in lawsuit settlements still able to keep their jobs?

Jawaun Fraser 

As Fraser exited the building with his friends, he allegedly told the undercover that he looked like a cop. The undercover denied it, but the situation escalated. The officer claimed the other boys in the group were goading Fraser to “fuck him up,” and Fraser balled up his fists. The undercover offered to show his ID to prove he was just a guy from the neighborhood.

But when he handed over his driver’s license — which had the officer’s picture but also a fake name — Fraser pulled out his phone to take a picture of the ID. That’s when the undercover gave the signal.

The narcotics officers rushed in. Fraser ran but was caught. The officers claimed that they recovered the undercover’s ID on Fraser, and arrested him and charged him with robbery. Fraser pleaded not guilty.

In November 2015, as Fraser stood trial on robbery charges, Undercover 84 and his team members, Detective Matthew Regina and Detective Jason Deltoro testified against him. His defense attorney pointed to inconsistencies in the cops’ testimony.

For instance, the undercover had initially testified that he had retrieved the $50 he had given the crack user to set up the failed drug deal, but later denied that she returned the money. Detective Regina also couldn’t get his story straight on whether the undercover told him that Fraser also took money from him.

The trial prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Gregory Sangermano, from Manhattan DA Cy Vance Jr.’s office, argued that the reason the cops’ stories had changed was because leading up to trial they had a chance to better review case material and give a more accurate version of events.

The jury spent two days deliberating and at one point told the judge they were “deadlocked.” Ultimately they found Fraser guilty on a lesser available charge: third degree robbery. Since it was his first felony conviction, the judge could have sentenced Fraser to probation, his lawyer said. But the judge ultimately decided to sentence him to two-to-six years in state prison.

After Fraser’s conviction, he was assigned an appeals attorney from the Center for Appellate Litigation in Manhattan, which represents people who can’t afford to hire a lawyer to fight their conviction.

Fraser’s new attorneys recognized a name: Undercover 84. In a previous case they had worked on, the Manhattan DA’s office had failed to turn over several lawsuits filed against the undercover for fabricating evidence or other misconduct.

By law, prosecutors are required to turn over any evidence to defendants that can help them at trial — including information about the officers testifying in the case that could raise questions about their credibility. This duty is colloquially referred to as the prosecutor’s “Brady obligation” — named for the 50 year old Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland. Leading up to Fraser’s trial, the ADA provided the defense with two civil rights lawsuits against the officers in Fraser’s case. But his defense attorney decided not to question the cops about it on the stand.

Fraser’s new attorneys uncovered 35 lawsuits against the officers on this narcotics team. The prosecution admitted that a paralegal had conducted a search and found 13 lawsuits against the officers involved in Fraser’s arrest, Detective Regina and Undercover 84. However, the DA’s office argued that these lawsuits were not “material” to Fraser for his case.

State Supreme Court Judge Robert Stolz ordered Fraser’s conviction vacated, and a new trial was granted. The DA’s office could have retried the case but agreed not to do that if Fraser pleaded to some sort of charge. So in order to put this all behind him, Fraser agreed to plead to disorderly conduct, a non-criminal offense.

“I think that the question really has to be how is the Manhattan DA really handling police misconduct information,” said Alexandra Mitter, one of Fraser’s appellate attorneys.

Fraser’s lawsuit alleges the DA’s office violated his constitutional rights by having a process in place that allows violations like what happened in his case to happen. If he wins the case however, it will be the City government charged with defending the case — not the DA’s office or any individual prosecutors — that pays him.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. leaves court in February. 

District attorneys around the city have made some efforts to keep tabs on cops with credibility issues who might negatively impact their case if an officer’s trustworthiness is challenged in court. In 2018, Gothamist/WNYC reported that all five New York City DAs have compiled some form of internal police credibility list. A former prosecutor from the Manhattan DA’s office confirmed to Gothamist that its list, known internally as “the bad cops list,” includes “officers’ criminal convictions, past false statements and information on pending investigations.”

And last year, Gothamist/WNYC obtained and published the Manhattan DA’s “bad cops list” revealing that it included 61 NYPD officers as of December 2019. The officers who arrested and testified against Fraser — Regina, Deltoro, and Undercover 84 — do not appear to be on the list.

Manhattan DA spokesman Danny Frost told Gothamist the office keeps a centralized database about NYPD officers who have been sued for alleged civil rights violations. “Our office follows a protocol for identifying and disclosing lawsuits filed against New York City law enforcement personnel in their professional capacity.”

He added that “trained searchers” gather information on civil rights lawsuits and store the information in a digital library. When a police officer is asked to be a witness in a case, a search is done, and the results are stored and accessed in the digital library.

“The ADA verifies the results of the search, and then the existence of any such suits, information regarding their status and disposition, if known, and a copy of the complaints, when available, are disclosed to defense counsel,” he said.

In addition, Frost said the DA’s office requests the NYPD provide information about particular officers as part of their general discovery practice. “Sometimes the information shared by the NYPD includes information about lawsuits filed against that officer, and sometimes it does not.”

Frost declined to say whether the officers involved in the Fraser case had been added to its list of officers with credibility issues. “We do not confirm whether we maintain particular information about a particular officer in response to public information requests,” he said.

Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said that while it is reassuring that the Manhattan DA’s office is keeping a list of cops with credibility issues, that “is no substitute for public transparency” and does not “guarantee that the DA will use the list to achieve justice.”

“This demonstrates all too clearly that DA’s can not be relied on – nor should they be – to correct even the most blatant injustices that occur when police and prosecutors abuse their office,” she said.

NYCHA buildings on the Lower East Side. 

According to Capstat, the Legal Aid Society’s database of NYPD misconduct and lawsuits against officers, Detective Regina has been sued at least 15 times in federal court and cases he’s been named in have been settled for at least $274,000. Undercover 84 has been sued 6 times and $46,500 has been paid in settlements. Fraser’s attorney told Gothamist that through their research they’ve uncovered 17 total lawsuits against Regina and 14 against Undercover 84 so far.

Moschella, the attorney representing Detective Regina, said “The fact that the officers have been sued in the past says nothing.”

He called lawsuits against the police “a common tactic” used by those who were “lawfully and properly” arrested and prosecuted. He added that the city’s decision to settle the lawsuits is not “relevant.”

“They often find it more cost-effective to settle cases than actually proceed to trial on the issues,” Moschella said.

In at least one lawsuit, Regina and Undercover 84 were accused of manufacturing a drug case against a defendant. In May 2012, Marlon Baynes claimed that Undercover 84 approached him at the corner of West 4th and Gay Street in Lower Manhattan and tried to buy drugs. According to a civil right lawsuit Baynes later filed, he attempted to get away from the undercover officer by walking towards Sixth Avenue. There, Baynes said, he observed Undercover 84 buy drugs from another person then attempt to hand him the narcotics. Baynes said he threw the drugs to the ground and walked away. But as he turned the corner, he was intercepted by Regina and other NYPD officers who arrested him. They placed him under arrest and he was charged with the criminal sale of narcotics.

Baynes claimed in his lawsuit that he was illegally strip searched, his bail was set at $15,000, and he was held for seven days. Then a grand jury refused to move the case forward and the charges were dropped.

In 2013, Baynes settled his lawsuit against the city and was paid $25,000.

When asked about Fraser’s lawsuit, Sergeant Jessica McRorie, NYPD spokesperson, told Gothamist, “The NYPD will decline comment on pending litigation.”

Asked why the department continues to employ officers who have faced many lawsuits, the NYPD did not respond.

The City Law Department also did not respond to a request to comment.

An attorney for the Detectives Endowment Association, the union that represents Detectives Regina and Deltoro, told Gothamist that it is “unfortunate” that Fraser chose to sue the officers.

“They will vigorously defend themselves in that case as they deny any wrongdoing in their arrest of Fraser and stand by their work, trying to rid the City of the scourge of drugs, 100 percent,” DEA attorney James Moschella said.

After getting out of prison, his attorneys said, Fraser told them that when he came home, his family and friends noticed that he was acting differently. For example, when he first came home, he still took showers in his underwear for a while.

In a statement provided by his lawyer, Fraser told Gothamist, “When you first come home, you don’t feel comfortable around too many people. You feel like everyone around is going to attack you, that everyone around you is against you.”

He said that his arrest and time in prison has made him trust the police less, and less likely to go to them for help. “When you go through something like that, a wrongful arrest especially, how are you ever supposed to call on the police?”