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NYPD has unrestricted access to sealed criminal records, says city attorney
The NYPD has apparently unfettered access to sealed criminal records — a revelation that an attorney called “alarming.”
New filings in a high-stakes class action suit alleging a summons quota system within the NYPD detail an email exchange and dispute over just who can read records sealed by a judge after charges are dismissed.
The NYPD “is permitted to access and/or use sealed information for a variety of reasons, including for the purposes of investigating crimes and/or apprehending suspects,” city attorney Daniel Passeser wrote in an email. He added that the sealed records are also used for licensing handguns.
Attorney Elinor Sutton, who is representing a class of people who received 850,000 summonses dismissed by a judge for being legally insufficient, told Passeser in an email that his “recent statements are alarming.”
Judge Robert Sweet should address the issue, she said. Laws governing sealed records were enacted “to remove any stigma related to accusations of criminal conduct,” Sutton wrote.
The exchange was included in new documents filed in Manhattan Federal Court. A judge has ordered the city to perform a statistical analysis of the dismissed summonses to determine the factors that led to them being tossed.
“The NYPD treats sealed records with the utmost care and has not used any sealed record in this litigation without authorization from the court or the plaintiffs,” a Law Department spokesman said.
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