In a complaint filed Saturday, Levar Riley explains that he was just one of former NYPD officer Jerry Bowens' many victims and demands compensation for himself and others falsely accused by the cop who is currently serving 40 years for murder.
Bowens falsified police records while assigned to Brooklyn South Narcotics Division and the city "knew or should have known" that he was corrupt, Riley's complaint says. In 2008, Bowens supplied drugs to an informant in exchange for information, the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office said in a 2022 news release. While Bowens' criminal case on this matter was pending, "in 2009, he shot and killed his ex-girlfriend and shot her friend who survived. As if that was not enough, he put his own attorney on a hit list," the complaint said.
After Bowens' misconduct was revealed, the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office in 2022 dismissed 134 convictions in which his testimony was essential to proving guilt, the 2022 news release said.
Riley was one of the people whose convictions were overturned, his attorney, Rudy Velez, said in a phone interview Monday.
Velez said the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office claimed it notified all the people whose convictions were overturned, but "if they did, there would be no need for me to bring a class action."
"If they notified them, they must have done it through telepathy or some other unknown mode of communication," Velez said.
He explained that by bringing the lawsuit, he is preventing the statute of limitations from running out so that Bowens' victims, who may not even know they have civil rights claims, can still collect on them.
Velez, who specializes in this type of litigation, said he was trying "to make the civil rights violations mean something" by holding the city financially responsible.
"The city was on notice of Bowens' widespread practice and pattern of violating the civil rights of the people he arrested, yet did nothing about it," the suit said, calling Bowens "a one-man pattern and practice of police misconduct to which the city turned a blind eye."
Riley says he and others like him were maliciously prosecuted using fabricated evidence and were denied their constitutional right to due process. According to the suit, police facing quotas had a widespread and well-known practice of illegal arrests in Brooklyn South Narcotics Division.
"Former Detective Stephen Anderson testified under a cooperation agreement in the corruption trial of Brooklyn South Narcotics Detective Jason Arbeeny that it was common practice to fabricate drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas," the suit said.
Arbeeny was convicted of official misconduct and related crimes for planting drugs on suspects in 2007, resulting in 14 convictions being overturned, according to the 2022 news release.
Four officers including Arbeeny and Bowens were implicated in a corruption scandal at Brooklyn South Narcotics in the late 2010s, leading to a total of 191 overturned convictions, according to the news release.
The complaint said the city should be held liable because "a widespread pattern of corrupt behavior that constituted a custom or usage with the force of law caused Riley and the proposed class to be subjected to the deprivation of a fair trial in violation of the New York state and United States constitutions."
Velez has settled at least 50 civil rights lawsuits against the city of New York, with values of up to $1.5 million, according to the complaint.
He said he was not sure what amount this suit might settle for, but "I am trying to make the people who suffered the violations — not only to make them aware that they suffered a violation — but also let them know that they are entitled to money damages."
Representatives for the city declined to comment Monday.
Riley is represented by Rudy Velez of the Law Office of Rudy Velez & Associates.
Counsel information for the defendants was not immediately available.
The case is Riley v. City of New York, case number1:25-cv-06616, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
--Editing by Janice Carter Brown.
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