Queens DA Melinda Katz Moves To Expunge 60 Convictions Linked To Corrupt NYPD Officers

At a virtual hearing on Monday, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz successfully petitioned a judge to expunge 60 convictions linked to three NYPD officers who were found to have committed crimes and fabricated evidence in other cases in years past.

“We cannot stand behind a criminal conviction where the essential law enforcement witness has been convicted of crimes which irreparably impair their credibility,” said District Attorney Melinda Katz in a statement. “Vacating and dismissing these cases is both constitutionally required and necessary to ensure public confidence in our justice system.”

The expungements are the result of a campaign by the Legal Aid Society, the Exoneration Project, and other organizations focused on overturning wrongful convictions, which asked prosecutors across the city in May to investigate cases involving 22 NYPD officers who were convicted of crimes at some point in their careers.

In response to that request, Katz, who formed a conviction integrity unit when she took office as district attorney last year, launched a review and found that 10 of the 22 flagged officers had contributed to convictions in Queens. The 60 dismissals announced on Monday stemmed from an initial review of three of those officers’ arrest records.

Thirty-four of those cases were linked to Detective Kevin Desormeau, who was convicted in 2018 for lying about an alleged cocaine sale in Jamaica, Queens.

Another 20 were tossed because they hinged on the work of Detective Sasha Cordoba, who pleaded guilty in 2018 after prosecutors found she made repeated false statements in a gun possession case in Washington Heights in Manhattan.

The other six convictions stemmed from the work of former NYPD Detective Oscar Sandino, who was charged in 2010 and pled guilty to sexual assault and other sexual misconduct charges involving arrestees.

Elizabeth Felber, a supervising attorney at the Legal Aid Society’s wrongful convictions unit, thanked Katz, who is the first District Attorney in the city to seek to overturn convictions in response to the mass exoneration campaign Felber’s organization helped spearhead.

Felber also directly addressed the 60 people who had their convictions purged, some of whom she said served prison sentences, lost jobs, and had licenses suspended as a result.

“We hope you will pursue all available legal remedies,” Felber said. “While it may not undo the harm caused to you. It will be a measure of justice to make up for the original injustice of your arrest and conviction.”

In court, Katz promised that these expungements were just the beginning as her office continues to probe the work of the other officers tied to convictions in Queens.