Two police officers were arrested in Manhattan on Friday and charged with covering up a drunk-driving crash involving an off-duty officer.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office charged Officers Michael Caligiuri and Ryan McLoughlin with tampering with public records in the first degree, falsifying business records, tampering with physical evidence and two counts of official misconduct. Both men pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
The two officers were led into the courtroom on Friday morning in handcuffs, as dozens of their colleagues, not dressed in uniform, followed behind them. Patrick Hendry, the president of the Police Benevolent Association, led the group, which filled up most of the seats in the courtroom.
On Oct. 16, 2024, Officers Caligiuri and McLoughlin responded to a 911 call about a crash on West 26th Street and Eighth Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, prosecutors said. The caller reported that the crash involved a drunken driver of a 2020 Infinity S.U.V., according to prosecutors. But when the men arrived at the scene and learned that the driver was another Police Department officer, they did not ask whether he had been drinking, according to prosecutors.
Officers Caligiuri and McLoughlin started texting each other instead of talking out loud, so their conversation would not be recorded by their body-worn cameras, prosecutors said. And when the driver left the scene without permission, they did not try to stop him or report that he had left, prosecutors said.
Police officers across the United States are rarely criminally charged for misconduct while on duty. In New York, data reviewed by The New York Times in 2020 showed that officers accused of misconduct often had internal reprimands downgraded or dismissed.
In the case of Officers McLoughlin and Caligiuri, they are accused of using their positions to hide the conduct of an off-duty officer.
When they arrived at the scene of the crash in 2024, the officers were told by the caller that the driver of the Infinity S.U.V. was intoxicated, prosecutors said. The caller also told them that the driver had shown him a police badge, prosecutors said, and that the driver had identified himself as an officer.
The driver of the Infinity, whom prosecutors identified as Eli Garcia, struggled to provide his license and could not locate his vehicle registration, they said. However, he did show Officer Caligiuri his Police Department identification card, according to prosecutors. Mr. Garcia eventually pleaded guilty to driving while being impaired and was sentenced to a conditional discharge, which included a 90-day license suspension. He has since resigned from the Police Department.
Officer Caligiuri never questioned Mr. Garcia about being intoxicated and “positioned his body-worn camera so that it would not fully capture his interaction,” prosecutors said. He and Officer McLoughlin then began communicating through text messages on their personal phones, prosecutors said, out of view of their body cameras.
At one point, Officer McLoughlin texted “Idk what to do,” and Officer Caligiuri responded with “it’s bad man.”
Shortly after, prosecutors said, Officer Caligiuri removed his body-worn camera from his chest and slid it into Officer McLoughlin’s hand.
Officer Caligiuri then walked away and called a supervisor, according to prosecutors. When he returned, he did not tell Officer McLoughlin what he had been told. When Mr. Garcia drove away shortly after, the officers did not stop him or report that he had fled, prosecutors said.
Hours later, at around 1:15 a.m., a captain with the Police Department went to Mr. Garcia’s apartment, saw that his car was parked illegally on a sidewalk and found him inside drunk and unfit for duty.
Hurubie Meko is a Times reporter covering criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state courts.
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