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<\/p>\nNew York state police used their badge to settle personal scores and had sex while on duty. Still, they remained on the job, an investigation found, in part doe to the agency’s loose rules on discipline.<\/p>\n
By Sammy Sussman<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Gray Rider, a statue dedicated to state troopers, outside of the New York State Police Headquarters in Albany, N.Y. Cindy Schultz for The New York Times.<\/p>\n
This story is co-published with The New York Times and New York Focus.<\/p>\n
An investigator with the New York State Police helped get a friend\u2019s traffic tickets reduced \u201cin exchange\u201d for her sexually explicit photos, according to a disciplinary letter from 2017.<\/p>\n
Another stunned a combative suspect with his Taser in 2020 and held down the trigger for 33 seconds, twice the amount of time widely considered dangerous and potentially fatal.<\/p>\n
Some officers with the agency neglected their duties; others had sex while on duty. Some used their badges to elicit favors; others to settle personal scores. Some failed to call for medical aid when needed; others lied in police reports.<\/p>\n
The circumstances of any case of officer misconduct vary. Still, most large police agencies in New York State thoroughly outline steps to be taken in their investigative processes and have explicit disciplinary guidelines<\/a> that recommend specific punishments \u2014 in some cases, even firing \u2014 for these types of offenses.<\/p>\n But the State Police, New York\u2019s second-biggest law enforcement agency, has no such formal disciplinary guidelines. How a misconduct complaint is investigated, and any resulting discipline, is discretionary. All of these officers remained on the job.<\/p>\n The New York Times and New York Focus<\/a>, a nonprofit newsroom, obtained through records requests<\/a> thousands of State Police disciplinary files dating back to 1998. For the most part, the files do not include cases of officers committing crimes, which are generally investigated by prosecutors. But they do include confirmed cases of misconduct handled by the agency itself.<\/p>\n An examination of agency files from 2014 to 2024 revealed a far weaker disciplinary system than those used in other large departments in New York. It is one that has routed complaints of flagrant wrongdoing to low-levels of scrutiny, and that has addressed abuses of power and derelictions of duty with lax punishments.<\/p>\n Some cases were investigated by an internal affairs office, but without formal guidelines, discipline was applied inconsistently. One trooper who had sex while on duty, for example, received an eight-day suspension without pay. Two years earlier he had been caught taking a photo of his genitalia while in uniform. But two others who also had sex while on duty, records show, got suspensions of 45 and 90 days without pay, even though they had relatively cleaner disciplinary records.<\/p>\n Other cases \u2014 those that the office decided could be handled at a lower level \u2014 were addressed with a conversation between trooper and supervisor.<\/p>\n And despite repeated calls for reform, the State Police\u2019s disciplinary system remained largely unchanged for decades.<\/p>\n The State Police declined multiple requests for interviews with agency leadership. Beau Duffy, a director of public information with the State Police, wrote in a statement that \u201callegations involving serious misconduct are thoroughly investigated\u201d and that the agency began developing a formal disciplinary model in 2025. It is not yet complete.<\/p>\n \u201cThe circumstances and facts revealed during an investigation can vary widely\u201d and influence possible discipline, Duffy wrote, adding that \u201cpast precedent, and an employee\u2019s previous history\u201d also play a role.<\/p>\n In a statement, a representative for Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York wrote that \u201cthis Administration fully investigates any claims of wrongdoing\u201d and supports Steven G. James, who took over the State Police as superintendent in 2024. The representative declined to comment on actions of past administrations.<\/p>\n Suat Cubukcu, a professor of criminal justice at Towson University who studies discipline in large law enforcement agencies, including those in New York, said that weak disciplinary systems and inconsistencies in punishments could lead to more bad behavior.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople see that their colleagues aren\u2019t being punished,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A \u201clack of attention\u201d to accountability<\/p>\n With more than 5,200 officers across roughly 200 stations, the State Police has a reputation for investigative work; troopers are often brought in to aid local law enforcement in serious cases<\/a>.<\/p>\n But disciplinary files from the agency\u2019s 11 regional troops, many of which had never before been reviewed by journalists, revealed a lack of scrutiny when the department policed its own.<\/p>\n The internal affairs office, called the Professional Standards Bureau, independently investigates \u201cserious or complex\u201d allegations of officer misconduct, per the agency\u2019s website<\/a>, but generally assigns those of a \u201croutine nature\u201d<\/a> to the commanders of troops.<\/p>\n Commanders resolve these cases with troopers, who waive their union representation. Following a conversation with the trooper, commanders must write a letter summarizing their findings, and, if they feel it is warranted, issue a suspension not exceeding five days, or a loss of five or fewer vacation days.<\/p>\n This process was designed so that commanders could handle minor complaints, like lost equipment or cursing on the job. But without formal disciplinary guidelines, the bureau\u2019s determination of which complaints are serious \u2014 and which are minor \u2014 is subjective.<\/p>\n This includes the case of the trooper who stunned a suspect and \u201cinadvertently held the trigger\u201d of his Taser for 33 seconds, per a disciplinary letter. The trooper\u2019s commander found his actions were \u201cexcessive\u201d and summed up the \u201cinformal inquiry\u201d in the one-page letter: \u201cWe discussed the importance of attention to detail,\u201d wrote the commander. \u201cHandling a Taser requires your complete attention.\u201d The trooper lost one vacation day.<\/p>\n Mac Muir, a former investigator for New York City\u2019s Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent agency that investigates allegations of police misconduct by members of the New York Police Department, questioned the State Police\u2019s handling of the case.<\/p>\n \u201cShow me a large police department that doesn\u2019t require more than a supervisory review for a 33 second Taser deployment,\u201d said Muir, who also supervised disciplinary investigations in Oakland, Calif. \u201cI\u2019ve literally never heard of that.\u201d<\/p>\n He also criticized the report for lacking an interview transcript, which is not required in troop- level investigations. \u201cWithout a recorded statement, there\u2019s no meaningful way to hold the officer accountable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Without a more robust disciplinary record, the complete context of the case is unclear. But in the New York Police Department, the state\u2019s largest agency, disciplinary policy would suggest that an officer who used excessive force with a stun gun face termination or, at minimum, a 10-day penalty.<\/p>\n Concerns about how complaints at the State Police are designated, and who looks into them, are not new. In 1997, a special prosecutor appointed to investigate troopers who tampered with evidence in multiple cases criticized the State Police for resolving complaints of serious misconduct at the troop level, recommending that such cases be investigated by the standards Bureau.<\/p>\n Rachel Moran, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law who studies police accountability, called it \u201ctroubling\u201d that some cases she viewed as serious were investigated at the troop level.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you see such a large agency that doesn\u2019t even have a systematic way of deciding when discipline is appropriate and at what level,\u201d she said, \u201cit suggests a lack of attention to the issue of accountability entirely.\u201d<\/p>\n New York State Police Troop G headquarters in Latham,. Photo by Cindy Schultz for The New York Times.<\/p>\n In 2022, a trooper responding to a \u201cshots-fired\u201d call missed a loaded revolver in a suspect\u2019s pocket, allowing the suspect to bring the weapon into the police station. Ten months later, his commander talked to him and issued a disciplinary letter.<\/p>\n That year, another trooper responded \u201ctelephonically\u201d to a larceny call at a Lowe\u2019s store, interviewing employees over the phone while he and his sergeant ate breakfast. After conversations with their commander five months later, the trooper lost two vacation days; the sergeant lost three, according to records.<\/p>\n In a separate incident two months later, records show, the same sergeant was caught adding false information to a police report. He lost four vacation days.<\/p>\n Duffy said he could not comment on previous leadership, adding that the bureau currently does \u201cnot assign cases involving serious misconduct to troop level.\u201d<\/p>\n In November, the agency faced public scrutiny when\u00a0the Times Union<\/a>\u00a0reported that some high-ranking agency leaders had used their police credentials to access exclusive areas of the Ryder Cup, a golf tournament on Long Island, two months earlier.<\/p>\n The day after the article was published, the agency\u2019s superintendent wrote<\/a> in a statement that it had learned of the allegations the week prior and was turning the case over to the state inspector general. Many involved in the incident, including the first deputy superintendent in charge of agency discipline, have since resigned.<\/p>\n In a statement, a representative for the troopers\u2019 union wrote that the scandal exemplified a \u201ctwo-tiered system, in which rank-and-file Troopers are held to stricter standards than those in leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n An agency exempt from many police reforms<\/p>\n In the weeks following the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, the New York Legislature passed a number of police reform laws.<\/p>\n But the State Police was one of a handful of multicounty agencies excluded from most of the changes, and it unsuccessfully fought in court one of the few that did apply: the repeal of a 1976 law that kept officer disciplinary records secret.<\/p>\n The New York Police Department made most of its files public in 2021<\/a>. But despite a court order, the State Police has yet to make its entire body of misconduct files public. WKBW<\/a>, a Buffalo TV station, reported on some records obtained from a local district attorney about state troopers in their area in 2022. The thousands of State Police files obtained by The Times and New York Focus came through records requests of county district attorneys\u2019 offices.<\/p>\n \u201cThey say it\u2019s too burdensome to identify all the files,\u201d said Cory Morris, an attorney on Long Island who in 2021 sued for the disciplinary files of troopers across three counties. He continues to fight the agency for prompt access to the records.<\/p>\n \u201cWell then, how much misconduct is there?\u201d he asked in an interview.<\/p>\n Attorney Cory Morris sued for files of state troopers stationed in three counties.<\/p>\n In 2020, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed an order requiring hundreds of police agencies to submit police reform plans<\/a> to the state. The Legislature passed a law requiring police agencies to report to the attorney general repeated allegations of misconduct against an officer over a two-year period. Neither requirement applied to the State Police.<\/p>\n Al Taylor, a state assemblyman and author of the bill, said in an interview that he thought the agency faced oversight from the state inspector general\u2019s office. That office investigates waste, fraud and abuse \u2014 exploiting overtime, for example \u2014 but it does not routinely investigate allegations of law enforcement misconduct, like excessive force. There is no regulation or statute requiring the State Police to report repeated allegations of misconduct to the inspector general.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s worth taking a look at it again,\u201d Taylor said in an interview.<\/p>\n In its most recent reports, from 2020 and 2022, the state inspector general\u2019s office criticized the State Police for its disciplinary practices.<\/p>\n Discipline \u201cwas extremely lenient and lacked transparency,\u201d the inspector general wrote in a 2020 report about an off-duty officer\u2019s car crash of a federally leased vehicle. The agency lacked policies \u201cto ensure consistency and transparency in the classification of violations,\u201d the inspector general wrote, \u201cas well as the assignment of discipline.\u201d<\/p>\n Subscribe to our free weekly newsletters<\/p>\n<\/p>\n After the 2022 report, the Professional Standards Bureau began sharing cases it investigates in monthly meetings with the inspector general\u2019s office, according to Duffy, the agency representative.<\/p>\n But in not yet making the bulk of its misconduct files available to the public, many complaints \u2014 and how they were handled \u2014 remain concealed.<\/p>\n In some instances, records obtained by The Times and New York Focus show, state troopers evaded public scrutiny \u2014 even, in one case, when an officer from another agency faced significant criticism over the same incident.<\/p>\n In 2021 a police officer in the village of Monticello ended a traffic pursuit by firing his stun gun at a motorcyclist through the passenger-side window. The motorcyclist sustained serious injuries. The officer was suspended, and he resigned in the face of public scrutiny and a disciplinary investigation.<\/p>\n What was not widely reported was that a State Police trooper was riding in the passenger seat. The trooper, records revealed, failed to render aid to the motorcyclist, or call an ambulance. He turned off his body camera, and didn\u2019t report the use of force, a disciplinary letter later noted.<\/p>\n The Monticello officer was criminally charged for impeding an investigation and lost his certification to be a police officer in New York.<\/p>\n Following an investigation by the standards bureau, the trooper was suspended without pay for three days. He remains on the force.<\/p>\n Sammy Sussman pored over thousands of State Police disciplinary records obtained in 2023 of active and recently retired officers to report this article, which is part of a series<\/a> by The New York Times\u2019s Local Investigations Fellowship<\/a>.\u00a0Sarah Cohen contributed reporting.<\/p>\n This article was reported in partnership with Big Local News at Stanford University, and with support from MuckRock, the Fund for Investigative Journalism and the Data-Driven Reporting Project.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\tposted 1 day ago – January 28, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York state police used their badge to settle personal scores and had sex while on duty. 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