{"active":false,"first_name":"Angelo","last_name":"Polite","race":"Black","gender":"Male","rank":"DT3","command":{"command":"DB BX"},"shield_no":5729,"ended_date":"2014-02-05","taxid":"914604","complaint_ids":[200706845,200106328,9804965,9700553],"command_history":[{"command":"041 DET","id":"41det"}],"appt_date":"1994-02-28","lawsuits":[{"name":"Blyden, Malisha vs City of New York & Nycpd","start_date":"2015-06-22","disposition_date":"2017-01-27","payout_amount":2671000,"disposition":"Settlement","docket":"15CV08454","court":"U.S. District Court - Southern District NY","officer_name":"Polite, Angelo","summary":"This complaint entails a suit for wrongful conviction. The Plaintiff was exonerated by the Court after seven (7) years of incarceration following a confession by the true perpetrators. The following summarizes the crime briefly and the investigation that followed. \nOn September 6, 2005, two female sex workers, Jackie and Lace, and five men robbed and shot a man in his apartment. The Plaintiff had no connection to these crimes and no relation to the victim or the true perpetrators.  The evening before the robbery, the victim had been a client of Jackie and Lace. While at his apartment they used his cellphone.  \nTwo witnesses interviewed by Defendant NYPD Detectives Alamo and Polite reported that a short, thin woman was involved in the offence. This description did not match either the Plaintiff or her co-defendant to the original prosecution. \nThe victim and another witness stated that Jackie and Lace had used the victim's phone. Defendant NYPD Detective Smith asked the victim to identify which, if any, numbers in his call log were unfamiliar. Due to his extensive injuries and pain medication, the victim erroneously identified a number which he himself dialed in error as the number dialed by Jackie and Lace. That number led detectives to Latisha, a friend of the Plaintiff's and her eventual co-defendant in the trial which led to the Plaintiff's wrongful conviction. Latisha was identified by the victim in a photo array which was not recorded or administered by a neutral party. \nLatisha was ultimately taken in for questioning regarding the robbery and held for a 22-hour interrogation. The result of the interrogation was a false confession by Latisha which implicated the Plaintiff in the robbery and shooting. The confession given by Latisha had several hallmarks of police coercion, including providing her with details of the offence which she could not have otherwise known. The confession was so clearly unreliable that the prosecution did not adduce it during the trial. Instead, the State relied on perjured testimony from accomplices to the shooting who had cut deals in return for their cooperation. \nLastly, the prosecution relied heavily on the victim's phone records which tied the crime to Latisha. The full unredacted record was not disclosed to defence counsel until the trial was nearly concluded. When it was finally disclosed, it was revealed that Latisha's phone number is only one (1) digit off a number regularly called by the victim. The call to Latisha's number only lasted a few seconds. Essentially, the victim had dialed Latisha's number in error and then hung up when he realized this. The exculpatory evidence should have been furnished to defence counsel well in advance of the trial. \nThe Bronx District Attorney's Office concealed exculpatory evidence, improperly influenced witnesses to give false testimony, suborned testimony knowing it to be false and wrongfully pursued the prosecution without good cause. \nYears later, while Latisha and the Plaintiff served their heavy prison sentences, appellate counsel reinvestigated the case. That investigation uncovered numerous irreconcilable problems with the case against the Plaintiff and Latisha, most notably identification of the true Jackie and Lace perpetrators. When the NYPD was provided with that information, they questioned Jackie and Lace and received detailed, well-corroborated confessions from them, incontrovertibly exonerating the Plaintiff and Latisha.","documents":[{"url":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.449211/gov.uscourts.nysd.449211.2.1.pdf","type":"complaint"}],"url":"https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/13346986/blyden-v-city-of-new-york/"}],"id":"EEWM","url":"https://www.50-a.org/officer/EEWM"}