NYPD Cold Case Cover-Up Addressed

One of the most outrageous cover-ups in New York City history is heading back to court on November 19. For the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court, it’s an opportunity not just to right a wrong in a decades-old murder case, but to send a message that the New York City Police Department’s routine assaults on freedom of information will no longer be tolerated.

Forty-seven years ago, NYPD Patrolman Phillip Cardillo was gunned down inside Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam Mosque in Harlem. Fearing controversy, the mayor and NYPD brass promptly threw Cardillo under the bus. The crime scene was swiftly erased. Suspects were released and vanished. Investigations were stonewalled. Evidence was buried.

Exaggeration? Don’t take our word for it. A special grand jury probe concluded there was “a concerted and orchestrated effort by members and former members of the Police Department to impede the investigation into the murder of Patrolman Philip Cardillo.” No one ever served a day in jail for the crime.

A Judicial Watch investigation turned up new evidence in the case, but hit a stone wall with the NYPD. In 2017, we filed a New York Freedom of Information Law request for case documents and an audio copy of a fake emergency telephone call that lured police to the Harlem mosque. We planned to make the audio tape widely available. Even after all these years, we reasoned, someone might recognize the voice that lured Cardillo to his death.

The NYPD ignored our FOIL request. It’s a tactic familiar to anyone who has attempted to exercise freedom of information rights with the department. The NYPD is easily with worst freedom of information offender in the state.

Our response? Enough. We sued the NYPD. We asked a New York court to compel the NYPD to turn over the Cardillo case file and the audio tape.

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