A federal jury on Monday found Mount Vernon and two narcotics detectives not liable on allegations by a city resident that he was unlawfully strip searched three times during a drug arrest seven years ago.
The jury rejected all of Alan Seward’s claims against Detective Camilo Antonini, his supervisor Detective Sgt. Sean Fegan and the city, particularly that Antonini had conducted body cavity searches and twice punched him during their interaction.
In closing arguments Friday of the weeklong trial before U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas, Seward’s lawyer, Mark Loevy-Reyes, cited 13 strip-search cases against the Mount Vernon police in a decade, all deemed to be unfounded by the city. He said the city should be held responsible for not properly supervising and disciplining its officers.
Loevy-Reyes said the inhumane treatment of Seward was of no concern to the officers and that their testimony — that they did not recall details of the searches — made sense because “they did this so often it doesn’t matter to them. This was another night at the office.”
But the city’s lawyer, Andrew Quinn, called Seward’s allegations a “fabrication and concoction” that made no sense, especially because he singled out Antonini when the officer wasn’t even at the bar where Seward first confronted police that night. He urged the jury to rely on evidence and not the buzzwords Seward’s lawyers used like “Wild West” and “degradation” that he suggested were used to get a visceral reaction from jurors.
Strip searches, evidence planting and false arrests are among the complaints that led the U.S. Department of Justice in December 2021 to launch an investigation into whether Mount Vernon police engage in a “pattern or practice” of civil rights violations. That probe is ongoing.
Fifth recent verdict not finding civil rights violations by police
But Monday’s verdict was the fifth time in two years that plaintiffs had failed to convince federal juries they were the victims of civil rights violations by Mount Vernon police enabled by a lack of proper supervision and discipline by the city. Two of those trials were this year and focused on illegal strip-search claims.
In February, a mistrial was declared when jurors could not reach a unanimous verdict on claims by Rayvon Rutherford and Reginald Gallman related to a May 2017 search warrant at an apartment where Gallman was suspected of selling drugs.
The sides have subsequently reached an unpublicized settlement for the two men.
Quinn said the verdict Monday in less than three hours of deliberations made clear that Seward’s claims “were never credible.” And because the verdicts have been by impartial jurors, he added, they should dispel the narrative that the narcotics cops were “a rogue, rights-violating, unsupervised bunch of cops”.
“The members of the MVPD are professionals doing a difficult job in a sometimes challenging environment,” he said in a statement. “To compound the difficulties, the Department has been the subject of multiple media articles reporting civil rights allegations as though they were proven and established which is, of course, inaccurate. We hope this latest jury verdict puts an end to the unfair media portrayal of the MVPD and its members.”.
Seward’s arrest was on Nov. 7, 2017. Police executed a search warrant targeting him at his daughter’s South First Avenue apartment. He was not there and officers went to find him at the Bungalow Bar on South Fulton Avenue.
Seward alleged multiple strip searches
Seward testified that he didn’t realize the three men who approached him in hoodies as he was playing pool were cops. He claims to have struck Antonini with a pool cue before he was removed from the bar. Seward claims that he was handcuffed when Antonini pushed him into a car, pulled Seward’s pants and underwear down and spread his buttocks to see if he had any contraband.
The police insist Antonini had remained at the apartment, never went to the bar and never conducted any strip search that night. A woman at the bar who knew Seward testified that she watched as Seward was in the car with police for several minutes but that when he got out his pants were up. She also said she did not see him hit anyone with a pool cue.
They then took him to Seward’s daughter’s apartment, where he claimed Antonini again conducted a cavity search in the bathroom, during which he ordered Seward to strip, squat and cough. Seward claimed Antonini punched him after he accused police of planting the cocaine they claimed to find there.
When he was arrested and brought to headquarters, Seward claimed he was again strip searched. Quinn argued to jurors that the two cavity searches never occurred and that the effort at headquarters to determine if Seward had any contraband — which wasn’t even performed by Antonini — was a routine “search incident to arrest.”
Seward was charged with possessing cocaine and later for an alleged sale of drugs to an undercover police officer. Seward skipped bail for a time, claiming it was when his mother became terminally ill. He was eventually allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor bail jumping charge.