Alison Esposito was a New York City police lieutenant in 2016 when she and fellow officers from a Manhattan gang unit went to an East Harlem apartment one night to arrest a suspect in several shootings.
They made that arrest. But they also cuffed a 16-year-old girl and charged her with punching and scratching Esposito. Those charges were dropped several months later, and the city wound up paying $25,000 to settle a lawsuit by the girl, who alleged that Esposito had made up the assault claim against her.
Five years after that settlement, Esposito is a Republican candidate for Congress, running for a House seat in the Hudson Valley area where she grew up. That bid for office, which follows an unsuccessful 2022 statewide run for lieutenant governor, is anchored in her 25-year career as a cop who rose to the rank of precinct commander.
She'll vie against Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan on Nov. 5 for New York's 18th Congressional District, which takes in all of Orange County, most of Dutchess County and part of Ulster County.
Esposito's campaign denies any wrongdoing in the 2016 arrest that led to a court settlement. But in emails recounting the case to the USA Today Network, the Brooklyn attorney who represented the girl alleged serious missteps by Esposito, starting with her illegally barging into the apartment without a warrant or the residents' consent.
"Although the police did not have either an arrest or search warrant and were expressly told that they could not enter without such a warrant, Esposito pushed into the apartment," attorney Andrew Miller said. "There was no exigency that justified Esposito’s action, she simply got frustrated with the delay and decided to act in violation of the law."
Once inside, he said, Esposito immediately grabbed 16-year-old Rebecca Cuevas, who was recording the encounter on her phone, and knocked the phone from her hand. Cuevas "was then brought to the floor where she was cuffed, only to then be dragged back to her feet by her hair" by Esposito, Miller said.
"It was our position that the arrest occurred because she was videotaping," he said.
Conflicting accounts of what happened
Police gave a starkly different account in their charging document. They alleged that the teen pushed herself between Esposito and the suspect she was trying to handcuff, then punched and scratched the officer — "causing redness and swelling to Lt. Esposito's cheek and scratches to her neck." Cuevas was charged with felony assault and a misdemeanor count of obstructing governmental administration.
Both charges were dismissed less than five months later, according to the lawsuit Cuevas and her mother brought in 2017. Their case leveled claims of malicious prosecution, assault, a civil rights violation and other offenses by Esposito and the police department. It was settled for $25,000 in 2019.
Ben Weiner, Esposito's campaign manager, disputed the version of events outlined by Cuevas' attorney, calling it "absurd."
"The reality is that Cuevas interfered with officers who were lawfully arresting her boyfriend — a violent, drug-dealing gang member wanted for shooting a rival gang member three times," Weiner said in an emailed response to the USA Today Network.
He added that Esposito was "fulfilling her responsibility to protect the community — a duty she upheld faithfully for 25 years."
What does the video show?
The phone video Cuevas allegedly shot that night appears to corroborate her attorney's account of an unauthorized entry.
Shared with the USA Today Network for viewing but not for publication, since Cuevas was a minor at the time, the 29-second video shows an apartment hallway and partially opened door as several voices repeatedly tell police they cannot enter. "Without a warrant you're not allowed to come into the house," a male voice says twice, shortly before an officer who appears to be Esposito pushes her way inside and toward the camera.
Then comes a clamor of voices and chaotic camera movements before the video cuts out a few seconds later.
Weiner, Esposito's campaign manager, didn't answer directly when shown the video and asked if Esposito and her group had a warrant to go inside. “The only thing that video shows," he said, "is Alison jumping into action to arrest a very dangerous gang member and getting him off the streets.”
Miller said the worst part of the incident for his client was having false charges "hang over her head," including a felony assault count that could have led to up to seven years in prison if she was convicted.
"At that time, Cuevas was 16 years old and maybe 5 ft tall and no more than 90-100 lbs," Miller wrote. "The idea that Cuevas assaulted the Lt. (Esposito) is absurd. No one believed it. And the City of course paid out."
Campaign launch: Orange County native Alison Esposito launches bid for Congress after 2022 state run
Who was the suspect police were seeking?
The charging document says police went to the apartment to arrest Tysheem McGregor. According to court documents and published reports, McGregor was alleged to belong to the East Army gang in East Harlem and tied to four shootings over territorial disputes in 2015 .
He was convicted of attempted murder and other charges in 2017, but the case had by then taken a strange turn: a juror admitted a romantic relationship with a prosecution witnesses. That led to the verdict being overturned on appeal and to a long second trial, with a very different outcome.
In 2021, a new jury acquitted McGregor on all but the least serious charge against him , enabling him to walk free.
Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA Today Network. Reach him at cmckenna@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Ex-NYC cop seeking Hudson Valley House seat was accused of falsely charging teen girl
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