New York City has to pay over half a million dollars to a Queens man who said he was put in an illegal chokehold by an NYPD officer and tased several times back in 2018.
The city's law department confirmed Wednesday that it will pay $562,500 to Tomas Medina and former detective Fabio Nunez, who was seen on video choking Medina, will pay $5,000 out of his own pocket. The department declined to comment on the settlement further.
Nunez and another NYPD officer responded to an alleged noise complaint in Inwood on July 14, 2018. That's where Nunez encountered Medina and placed him in a headlock, which was at the time banned by the police department and is now illegal under city and state laws, and tased him 13 times, according to the Legal Aid Society.
Medina later filed a complaint to the Civilian Complaint Review Board and the overnight board substantiated his claims. However, Nunez was not put on trial for excessive-force charges because he agreed to a deal that would have docked him 30 vacation days and placed him on dismissal probation for a year, the NY Daily News reported.
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Nunez began working for the NYPD in 2000, before retiring in April 2021, and he has been named in several lawsuits alleging excessive force or other misconduct -- some of which the city also paid thousands of dollars in settlements.
According to the CCRB's data, there were a total of 17 allegations and 10 complaints against Nunez over the years. The board substantiated three of those allegations.
