City wrapped in another “Freedom Of Information” litigation, must pay $49K for withholding information
A Manhattan judge has ruled that the New York City Police Department failed to comply with a duly-filed Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request by wrongfully withholding information requested by a non-profit organization. He ordered the city to pay over $49,000 in legal fees.
The Exoneration Initiative sought information on Richard Rosario, an inmate incarcerated since 1996, when he was convicted of a murder he claims he did not commit. To further its investigation, Exoneration Initiative filed a FOIL request on the NYPD, seeking documents related to Rosario’s case. The NYPD, on numerous occasions, failed to respond to the FOIL requests in a timely manner.
The city argued that the NYPD receives approximately 8,000 FOIL requests a year, and that those requests take time to process. For Acting Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Peter Moulton, this argument was a faulty one.
“The NYPD has enormous resources, and it could deploy sufficient resources to ensure that it timely responds to all its FOIL requests,” Moulton wrote, referring to the unnecessary need for the NYPD’s delays in responding to Exoneration Initiative. “[I]f the NYPD wants make the argument that the necessity of responding to thousands of FOIL requests a year diverts resources from its core mission, it should make that argument to the legislature,” Moulton chided.