Former officer sues the NYPD for pressuring him to reach monthly ticket quotas

Sep 11, 2012 09:09 GMT  ·  By

Paul Pizzuto was fired by the Staten Island Police Department in July of last year after issuing tickets to people he had previously summoned, some of which were deceased. He is now suing the NYPD for unlawful termination.

Pizzuto filed a suit with the Manhattan Supreme Court, the NY Post reports. He blames the 120th Precinct in Staten Island for threatening him with a transfer if he didn't reach his monthly target number of tickets.

The former cop “prepared summonses by taking information from legitimate summonses that he had issued in the past.” As his quota of 150 monthly tickets increased by 125, the 17-year veteran decided to issue fake tickets so that his actions “would not impact any motorists.”

As colleagues noticed that, over a period of month, he was never called to testify in the summonses he had given out, they got suspicious. An investigation followed, and it led to the man's arrest and subsequent termination. He was forced to complete 150 hours of community service starting May 2012.

As this was considered an “oath of office" issue, the 41-year-old police veteran was never allowed a disciplinary hearing to defend his actions.

A breach of the oath of office, as defined by the NYPD, implies “knowing or intentional conduct indicative of a lack of moral integrity.”

Pizzuto claims he acted out of good will, and wouldn't have felt forced to act in this manner if he hadn't been pressured with unrealistic quotas and threatened by his own superiors.

He only “issued summonses to motorists who deserved the summonses,” the former cop says in his suit.

Traffic ticket quotas are illegal in the state of New York, and police departments claim they are non-existent. However, the New York City Law Department hasn't made any comments on the lawsuit yet, and this is not the first time the issue of a summonses quota comes up.