The cop who tackled former pro tennis star James Blake got a penalty of five lost vacation days — half of that recommended by an independent oversight board, the Daily News has learned.
Officer James Frascatore was slapped with the five-day rip by Police Commissioner James O’Neill in February, sources told The News. The decision came five months after Frascatore was found guilty of excessive force following a departmental trial and two years, nine months after the incident.
Lawyers for the CCRB had recommended he lose 10 vacation days for the Sept. 9, 2015 encounter outside a hotel on E. 42nd St. near Lexington Ave. Frascatore was on a stakeout and mistook Blake for a credit card scammer.
Blake himself found even that penalty inadequate, saying he wanted the cop fired.
“Losing five vacation days for excessive force is a woefully inadequate penalty," Blake’s lawyer Kevin Marino told The News.
“Far from serving as a deterrent, a trivial penalty of that type would seem to be encouraging those inclined toward excessive force to go right on doing it.”
“He used violence first,” CCRB lawyer Jonathan Fogel said at the trial In September. “He used no words or warning, slamming him to the ground like a linebacker in NFL football."
Frascatore’s lawyer Stephen Worth called his client’s actions “appropriate.” “He did what he was told to do, what he was sworn to do,” he said at the trial.
Frascatore is white. Blake is biracial. The case was viewed as an example of how black men can be treated at the hands of the police. Then-Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and Mayor de Blasio apologized to Blake.
O’Neill’s five-day penalty was criticized by civil rights groups. “Officer Frascatore should have been fired a long time ago and should be fired now, said Monifa Bandele, spokesperson for Communities United for Police Reform and Senior Vice President at MomsRising.
“He engaged in multiple incidents of misconduct, receiving five civilian complaints within seven months of 2013, even before he brutalized James Blake. That he was not fired after being found guilty of excessive force against James Blake, following those numerous other abuses of civilians, is a testament to the fact that the NYPD has a disciplinary system that prioritizes protecting abusive officers over public safety.”
Added Christopher Dunn, associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, “Once again, the NYPD has undermined the authority of the CCRB, and this decision will just add to public distrust of the police department’s disciplinary process.”
The CCRB declined to comment.
Frascatore is currently in the midst of a departmental trial on charge indirectly related to the Blake incident, and could face additional discipline for those charges.
He is accused of knowing that his sister-in-law leaked a video of him and Blake shaking hands to a media outlet during the investigation, and searching for security footage that would help clear himself while on desk duty.
He is also accused of not voiding an arrest in a timely manner and failing to notify a supervisor of the incident.
“It’s our position that he acted within his duties as a police officer, and the investigators may have been under undue pressure to charge minor misconduct due to the public nature of the incident,” Frascatore’s lawyer Peter Brill said.
The NYPD did not disclose the decision in the excessive force case publicly because of a policy to withhold disciplinary outcomes, citing Section 50-a of the state Civil Rights Law. The law requires personnel records to be confidential, but critics have said the department is interpreting the law too broadly.
“Following the public disciplinary trial of Police Officer James Frascatore, the Commissioner finalized the case, consistent with the findings and recommendations of the Trial's Commissioner,” the NYPD said in a statement.