Ex-Ossining cops file lawsuit against village and police chief Kevin Sylvester

Correction: Ossining police Chief Kevin Sylvester was 35 when he became chief in 2016. His age was incorrect in an earlier version of this article.

Two former Ossining police officers are suing the village, assailing police Chief Kevin Sylvester over a litany of issues including unfairly forcing them to resign, vindictive behavior to keep them from getting new police jobs and using the county's license plate readers to check where one of the officers' personal cars had been over more than two years.

The lawsuit by Louis Rinaldi and Andrea Zambrano also alleges an intimate relationship between the chief and Officer Emily Hirshowitz, who was arrested two weeks ago on charges she falsely reported receiving threatening text messages that the District Attorney's Office determined she had sent herself. The lawsuit contends that Sylvester was behind a complaint to the DA's Office accusing Rinaldi of sending the texts.

Sylvester did not respond to emailed questions, including about the nature of his relationship with Hirshowitz. Her lawyer and a lawyer for the village also did not address that issue.

"Some (claims) are so ludicrous that you don't dignify them with a denial," said Brian Sokoloff, the village's lawyer.

He did not address any specifics of the lawsuit but questioned whether the plaintiffs would have the evidence to back up their claims.

"It appears to me to be a lawsuit out of spite," said Sokoloff. "Allegations are easy and talk is cheap."

What's in the suit

The two plaintiffs claim disparate treatment by Sylvester and village officials, as they were suspended without pay after departmental charges were filed against them but Hirshowitz − who village officials said was placed on administrative leave June 20 − continues to be paid despite her arrest. They contend they were retaliated against for complaining about Sylvester and that the loss of income for a lengthy period of time was part of the village's coercion to get them to quit.

Rinaldi's father is a local contractor and his cousin is also a village police officer. He joined the department in 2015 and starting in 2018 faced numerous accusations by Sylvester related to substance abuse and domestic violence incidents. He was forced by the chief to undergo substance abuse rehab in 2018 even though a doctor had opined it wasn't necessary, according to the lawsuit.

A domestic dispute with his fiancée in January 2021 led to disciplinary charges that were resolved after Rinaldi underwent further treatment for substance abuse. That November, there was a second incident, although Rinaldi maintains he was the victim. He soon filed a complaint against Sylvester, who had tried to get the fiancée to cooperate against Rinaldi, according to the lawsuit.

Additional disciplinary charges were then brought based on a video purportedly showing Rinaldi ingesting a white powdery substance while off duty in 2019 and Rinaldi was suspended without pay in early December 2021. The video was provided by his fiancee and the lawsuit contends that Sylvester repeatedly contacted her between November 2021 and March 2022 "to gather information against Rinaldi."

According to the lawsuit, the fiancée feared that she could lose her children if she did not cooperate.

After months without pay and medical benefits he reached an agreement in April 2022 to admit a violation of the department rule requiring officers to conduct themselves professionally at all times without embarassing the department or the village. That satisfied all departmental charges, according to the lawsuit, and he resigned in early May. But he accuses Sylvester of indirectly costing him a job he expected to get with the Greenburgh Police Department.

Zambrano, a trained paramedic fluent in Spanish, joined the department in 2016. In April 2019, she filed a harassment complaint against Sylvester with village officials. According to the lawsuit, that followed two weeks of Sylvester directing her to comply with orders she believed went against the recommendations of her doctor.

During the ensuing months, she claims, Sylvester complained to her colleagues about the legal costs he incurred defending against the complaint, which Kahan let her know was deemed unfounded. She asked to be moved to the midnight shift to limit her contact with Sylvester.

Early that fall, according to the lawsuit, Sylvester accused her of calling out sick too frequently and prohibited her from volunteering for overtime and working a side job for at least six months, significantly reducing her income. He also overruled a lieutenant's approval of Zambrano's request for paid time off, according to the lawsuit.

On Nov. 11, 2019, Zambrano sought Family Medical Leave. On the same day, she later learned through a Freedom of Information request, Sylvester directed members of the department to aquire data on her personal cars from the county's license plate readers dating back to November 2017.

Over the next five months, according to the lawsuit, she was: deemed by one doctor to be unfit to serve; placed on a leave of absence; restored to full duty after another examiner cleared her return to work; and placed on administrative leave after undergoing a disciplinary interview.

Unspecified departmental charges were eventually brought against her in April 2020 and she was suspended without pay, despite recommendations from a captain and a lieutenant that the charges were unwarranted, the lawsuit contends. That July, after the pandemic delayed hearings and she had no income, Zambrano claims she felt forced to resign. She believed she had a transfer lined up to become a Westchester County police officer, after seeking jobs with several local departments. But the job never materialized.

The lawsuit suggests that the village and Sylvester knew she had that job lined up but does not specify anything they might have done to scuttle it.

Zambrano's lawyer alleged to county police that the Ossining use of the license plate readers was unauthorized and amounted to unwarranted surveillance. According to an email from a county police official to the lawyer, George Hritz, last summer, Sylvester's explanation for checking on Zambrano was to determine if she was working a second job while out on sick leave, which would have been a violation of department policy.

The lawsuit contends that Zambrano felt pressured into signing a HIPAA waiver to permit village officials to see her medical records and that the village improperly released records in response to FOIL requests that included Rinaldi's social security number, home address and medical treatment information.

Sylvester, who became chief in 2016 at the age of 35, is also a lawyer. He serves as president of the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police and is past president of the Westchester police chiefs association.

The lawsuit filed by Michael Santangelo and Hritz accuses him of "using threats, department orders that contraindicated medical recommendations, embellished or conjured up departmental charges, arbitrarily issued suspensions and state decertifications" and that his "continuous corrupt actions have made police officers fearful of losing their employ."

It was filed Thursday in state Supreme Court in White Plains by Hritz and Michael Santangelo and seeks unspecified monetary damages. In addition to the village and Sylvester, it names Mayor Rika Levin, the four village trustees, eight former elected officials, Corporation Counsel Stuart Kahan, Village Manager Karen D'Attore and Jaclyn Goldberg, a lawyer who prosecuted police disciplinary cases for the village.

In an unrelated matter, Goldberg was indicted last month in Rockland County on charges of evidence tampering, hindering prosecution and conspiracy for allegedly helping her brother Ira Bernstein destroy evidence of his solicitation to have his wife killed. Bernstein already served prison time for a previous plot to kill his wife.

Officials stay mum

Village officials referred questions about Rinaldi and Zambrano's lawsuit to Sokoloff. The president of the police union has not responded to phone and email messages.

The lawsuit cites the forced retirements of three other village officers, including Andrew Pavone, who the plaintiffs claim was best man at Sylvester's wedding and godfather of his child.

Rinaldi, Pavone and a third officer were accused of using excessive force when they arrested a drunken and belligerent Phillip Blackwood at his father’s home in April 2020. Pavone, accused of cursing Blackwood, hitting him in the head and pulling him down stairs, was suspended and faced departmental charges as a result. He avoided a hearing in 2021 by admitting the violations and agreeing to retire in August 2022 when he would reach 20 years of service. Pavone was allowed to work regular duty until then and retired in good standing.

But he is now suing the department and the state Division of Criminal Justice Services because he had his training de-certified by the state agency when the village reported that he had been separated “for cause”. Pavone contends that the “good standing” element of his separation agreement precluded any negative notification to DCJS. The village countered that because his misconduct led to his eventual retirement he had resigned “for cause” and the village was obligated to notify DCJS.

Pavone's legal challenge included that the village acknowledged he didn’t use excessive force when its defense against a federal lawsuit by Blackwood argued that the force used was minimal and even required based on Blackwood’s conduct. While a federal judge dismissed the lawsuits claims against Rinaldi and the village, excessive force claims against Pavone and the other officer remained and the lawsuit was settled this year for $3,000.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Ex-Ossining cops sue police chief, village over series of issues