A veteran Sleepy Hollow police detective pleaded not guilty yesterday to a federal indictment that accuses him of brutalizing two people while they were restrained and handcuffed.
Jose Quinoy, 36, of Tarrytown was arrested by FBI agents from the civil rights division Tuesday night at Sleepy Hollow police headquarters.
He was arraigned yesterday in U.S. District Court in White Plains on two counts of violating the rights of individuals who had been arrested by Sleepy Hollow police.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Cynthia Dunne asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa Margaret Smith to order Quinoy held without bail, saying he was a danger to the community who had tried to intimidate witnesses in the case.
"Detective Quinoy has a long history of being hot-headed and overreacting to incidents," she said.
The village board suspended Quinoy without pay pending a disciplinary hearing.
Quinoy's lawyer, Andrew Quinn, denied that the 11-year member of the Sleepy Hollow police had interfered in the investigation, pointing out that he was not charged with obstruction of justice or witness tampering.
"Why wasn't action taken within the last two and a half years if he was out there intimidating witnesses?" he asked, referring to the time since the first incident in the indictment, the Oct. 17, 2006, alleged beating of Mario Gomez, 50, of Tarrytown.
Gomez is not referred to by name in the indictment. But he has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Quinoy and the village over the incident. Gomez said he was called to Sleepy Hollow police headquarters by Quinoy that night. Gomez thought Quinoy had been romancing his 22-year-old daughter. At the police station, Gomez claims, he was assaulted by Quinoy and other officers, that he was kicked and beaten, as well as shocked with a stun gun in his neck and temple for 51 seconds.
Gomez came to the courthouse yesterday with his lawyer, Francis Young, after Quinoy had been arraigned.
"I thought that I was going to die right there on Beekman Avenue," he said, recalling the incident. "I don't wish that on nobody. It is the worst experience of my life."
Gomez's estranged wife, Awilda, has also filed a lawsuit over the incident, saying she was beaten by Quinoy and other cops as she tried to save her husband.
The Gomezes were arrested that night. Mario Gomez was charged with assault, obstructing governmental administration, harassment and resisting arrest. Awilda Gomez was arrested by Quinoy when she returned to the station house to pick up her husband's car after she had sought medical attention. She was charged with obstructing governmental administration and resisting arrest.
The Gomezes are awaiting trial in Greenburgh Town Court. The case has been adjourned several times while the federal investigation was pending, and the couple is due in court May 19. Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the Westchester District Attorney's Office, would not say whether prosecutors plan to drop the charges against the couple as a result of Quinoy's indictment.
"I'm very satisfied that justice prevailed and this officer is not going to be able to hurt any other citizens," Gomez said.
The Gomez's lawsuits are two of three civil rights lawsuits pending against Quinoy in federal court. Last week, a 17-year-old village boy, Duanny Lara Mota, filed a lawsuit against Quinoy, Officer Paul Nelson, Police Chief Jimmy Warren and the village. The lawsuit stemmed from an Aug. 24, 2007, incident in which Mota said he was beaten and zapped with a Taser gun by Quinoy and Nelson after he was stopped by police for riding his bicycle on a village sidewalk. Mota, who was 16 at the time of the incident, was charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. But those charges were dismissed in September.
At the time, Mota's lawyer, Jonathan Rice, said the charges might have been dropped by the District Attorney's Office so as not to interfere with the FBI probe of Quinoy. The other officer in the incident, Paul Nelson, had asked the village board in August to pay for his legal expenses after he was subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury in White Plains looking into, he believed, the Mota incident.
But the Mota incident was not part of yesterday's indictment. The second incident referred to an unnamed person, alleged to have been assaulted Dec. 17, 2006, by Quinoy after he had been "handcuffed and restained by a police officer, resulting in bodily injury."
Still, Mota's mother said yesterday that she welcomed the federal indictment of Quinoy.
"I've been waiting for a long time for this. I'm happy that they arrest him for everything he do," she said. "He thinks he's bigger than everybody. He thinks that Hispanic people are nothing. He thinks he's bigger because he has a gun."
In Spanish, she added, "He has abused everybody a lot. He thinks he's better than anyone, and especially the Hispanics. He doesn't want to know about Hispanics. I don't know why. It's not that I feel happy for what's happening, because I'm not that way. But in reality, I'm calm, because now I know the teenagers that go into the streets in the summer won't have that problem, because everybody has problems with him. He looks for trouble with them, chastising them, telling them things. I think that justice has been done."
Quinn said yesterday that Quinoy was a victim of being a good at his job.
"When you're an active police officer, you generate people who do not like you," he said. Quinn said after Quinoy's arraignment that he did not know the details of the Dec. 17, 2006, incident. Herbert Hadad, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin, declined to elaborate on the charge.
Quinoy was released on $100,000 personal bond. He faces up to 20 years if convicted. He was ordered by Smith to surrender all guns, including his service weapons. Quinn said the guns were surrendered at the Sleepy Hollow police station Tuesday night when Quinoy came off patrol to find a half-dozen FBI agents waiting to arrest him.
Quinn decried federal authorities' decision to arrest Quinoy at the police station while he was on duty, saying that he had called Dunne months ago asking to be notified of any charge ahead of time so that he could arrange for Quinoy to surrender at the courthouse.
He said they chose instead to arrest Quinoy at work "for reasons that I cannot fathom."
But Dunne said that decision was made after Quinn called regarding media inquiries about the indictment.
She said what followed was a "2 1/2 -hour negotiation to get him to turn himself in." She said Quinoy was ordered back to police headquarters by his superiors during that time. "He would not comply," she said.
Quinn said that Quinoy had called him and that the lawyer was trying in vain to arrange a surrender at the courthouse or the FBI's White Plains office.
The lawyer said after the arraignment that the timing of Quinoy's arrest was suspect because Quinn is preparing for the May 11 federal trial of another police officer, Yonkers Officer Wayne Simoes, on brutality charges. He also said Gomez was no victim, that he had come to the police station to assault Quinoy and it took three officers to control him. "I strenuously disagree with the word 'victim,' " he said.
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