The city’s police watchdog group has been revealing unsubstantiated claims against NYPD officers — “stigmatizing” information that can damage cops’ careers even if proven to be bogus, according to a new bombshell lawsuit.
New York’s largest cop union, the Police Benevolent Association, filed the federal suit Tuesday accusing the 15-member Civilian Complaint Review Board of violating officers’ constitutional rights by sharing the sensitive allegations with a third-party website.
“CCRB’s publication regime for Stigmatizing Unsubstantiated Complaints inflicts severe reputational harm on police officers, jeopardizes their safety, and risks crippling their employment prospects,” states the Manhattan federal court filing.
The CCRB — which investigates reports of police misconduct — has even acknowledged that baseless allegations can hurt officers, but it continues to release those same claims to the online database 50-a.org through Freedom of Information Act requests, the suit charges. The website lists substantiated and unsubstantiated claims, discipline cases and legal settlements involving NYPD personnel.
But officers don’t get notice before the disclosures, and the CCRB doesn’t a conduct a review on an individual basis before replying to the FOIA requests and disseminating the claims — even if they end up being false or lacking evidence, according to the lawsuit.
“CCRB does not provide officers with notice or an opportunity to be heard prior to the disclosure,” the filing notes.
“And, as part of its blanket disclosure policy, CCRB fails to conduct an individualized review process or redact identifying details. And officers have no ability to remove the false and meritless accusations from the public database, where they remain forever in the public domain creating limitless prejudice.”
The lawsuit was filed in response to the CCRB changing its policy in October to release specific unproven allegations — like of sexual assault, racial profiling or lying — rather than listing them under the general heading “Abuse of Authority: Other,” the PBA said.
The CCRB also recently tweaked how it labels the results of cases to 50-a, from “unsubstantiated” and “exonerated” to “unable to investigate” and “within NYPD guidelines” — which don’t spell out if the officer was cleared of wrongdoing, according to the suit.
CCRB Executive Director Jonathan Darche even admitted in in an Oct. 22, 2025 meeting that the agency characterizes certain allegations on its own database as “Abuse of Authority: Other” because the complaint can “be very prejudicial to a person when they’re not substantiated,” the lawsuit notes.
“CCRB’s under-the-table collusion with anti-police activists to smear cops with false complaints is not only unfair and unconstitutional – it is a calculated effort to end proactive enforcement and drive cops away from the job,” PBA President Patrick Hendry alleged in a blistering statement.
“CCRB has admitted that these baseless allegations will destroy a cop’s career and life outside of work, yet the agency still made the deliberate choice to dump them into public view,” Hendry said in the statement.
“Through this federal lawsuit, we intend to put a stop to this destructive practice and expose CCRB’s radical agenda to ‘Abolish the Police’ by trampling cops’ rights.”
The CCRB offered little comment on the bombshell legal action, citing ongoing litigation.
“The CCRB’s investigations are complete, thorough and impartial,” a board spokesperson said in a statement.
“The Agency continually reviews all applicable laws and regulations regarding the public release of its records, including disciplinary histories of members of service, to ensure it is fully compliant.”