Judge Tosses Staten Island Man’s Conviction Following NYPD Drug Planting Allegations

In a court decision on Friday, a Staten Island judge vacated a man’s 2018 conviction, citing body camera footage which appears to show an NYPD officer planting marijuana in a car he was riding in.

At the time, police charged the man, Jason Serrano, for drug possession, resisting arrest, and obstructing governmental administration. Three months later, he decided to plead guilty to the resisting charge to avoid being sent to Rikers Island, unaware of the troubling body camera footage which prosecutors only shared with his attorneys months after his plea.

The judge’s decision also cited the disciplinary records of Kyle Erickson and Elmer Pastran, the two NYPD officers who arrested Serrano. Those records were first made public by Gothamist/WNYC, which uncovered them through a long-running Freedom of Information Law campaign.

The previously-secret disciplinary records show that Erickson, the officer accused of dropping the drugs into the cup holder of the car Serrano was riding in, was disciplined by the NYPD in two separate incidents the same year for invoice discrepancies related to drug seizures. Prosecutors never turned those records over to Serrano’s defense team.

In her decision, Judge Tamiko Amaker noted that in normal circumstances because of his guilty plea Serrano would be unable to vacate his conviction on the basis of the District Attorney’s failures to turn over evidence.

“However, this court finds that the body-worn camera footage, taken with the officers’ disciplinary files, demonstrate that the defendant may have been searched and seized in violation of his constitutional rights,” Amaker wrote. “Accordingly, the defendant’s motion to vacate his conviction pursuant to CPL 440.10(1)(h) is granted.

“We’re thrilled that the court has finally recognized that Jason Serrano’s rights were violated when he was arrested, when evidence was planted on him, and then when he was prosecuted without disclosure of any of that information,” said Marion Elizabeth Campbell, one of Serrano’s attorneys at the Legal Aid Society.

The Staten Island District Attorney’s Office did not respond to requests for comment about whether it plans to retry Serrano or bring charges against the officers involved. Previously, the office opposed Serrano’s attempts at overturning his conviction and cleared Erickson of any criminal conduct, arguing that the body camera footage was ambiguous.

In a separate incident, earlier in 2018, Officer Erickson was also seen on body camera footage appearing to plant drugs on a young Black man during another car stop. The young man went to jail for two weeks based on what his attorney characterized as “fabricated evidence.”

Campbell called on the Staten Island District Attorney to clear Serrano of all charges so that her client can move on with his life.

“It’s the least they could do,” she said. “And what they should really do, and what might actually restore some faith in the system, is prosecute Erickson and Pastran.”

The NYPD did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the current status of the two officers on the force. Pastran is listed in the department’s personnel database as being on military or extended leave. Erickson’s name does not appear in the database.

Erickson and Pastran did not respond to requests for comment left with police union officials.

George Joseph is an investigative reporter for Gothamist and WNYC. You can send him tips on Facebook, Twitter @georgejoseph94, Instagram @georgejoseph81, and at [email protected]. His phone and encrypted Signal app number is 929-486-4865.