Jury: Cops Didn’t Violate Rights

A federal jury Tuesday unanimously decided that two New Haven cops did not violate an Edgewood man’s constitutional rights, after deliberating for four-and-a-half hours.

The eight-member panel, all out-of-towners, sided with Det. Daniel Conklin and Lt. Jason Rentkowicz, two cops who’d been accused of falsely arresting and maliciously prosecuting Dennis Serfilippi, a startup consultant from Edgewood.

During two days of trial testimony, the plaintiff tried to prove that Conklin had lashed out maliciously, by kicking and pushing the front door and then mistaking details in a police report, while the defendants tried to show that the officers acted professionally in responding to an irritated citizen.

Serfilippi’s attorney, Joseph Merly, noted that it’s tough to prosecute cops. ​“In the Second Circuit and this district, the law is really in favor of the police, to even find a violation of constitutional rights,” he said. The jurors all came from out of town, three of them from the suburbs where the cops on trial live, Milford and Clinton.

Michael Wolak, the city attorney, meanwhile, said that the two officers were ​“doing a job, and doing it to the best of their ability.”

(Click here, here and here for previous coverage of this case, which included testimony of missing evidence. Click here to read about Conklin’s internal police file of incidents involving abusing citizens, which the jury was not allowed to hear about.)

In their closing statements, both Merly, the plaintiff’s attorney, and Wolak, the corporation counsel defending the cops, highlighted the two legal concepts they’d been competing to establish throughout the case: probable cause and intent.

Did the police officers have good reason to believe that Serfilippi had created a dangerous traffic incident, interfered with an officer’s duties, and injured an cop’s hand?

More importantly, what was the intent on both sides? Serfillippi had to show that Conklin pursued the charges against him for some other reason than seeing justice served. On the flip side, the police needed to prove that Serfilippi intended to pester or harass the road crew (or had been so reckless that intent didn’t matter), intended to withhold information from Conklin, and intend to stop Conklin from doing his job when he pinched his finger in the door.

In Merly’s narrative, Conklin unleashed malice to get back at Serfilippi for asking his badge number and threatening to call his supervisor.

But, first, the lawyer was quick to distinguish Conklin from other police officers. He began by thanking the jury for deciding such a difficult case. ​“It’s not easy to sit in judgement of anyone, let alone with a police officer,” Merly said. ​“You may want to say, ​‘I wasn’t there; he’s a professional; he did what he had to do,’ and not second-guess him. It’s natural to feel that way. The difference in this case is that when a citizen is wronged by a police officer, what is he to do? He can’t go to the police; he goes to the jury. You are the police of the police officers.” He added, ​“This case is not against police officers; it’s about two specific people who were doing a job. We feel very strongly that, in doing that job, they violated the constitutional rights of Mr. Serfilippi.”

Then, channeling the cop, Merly enacted some of Conklin’s testimony, including the deescalation tactics he supposedly used, and repeatedly referred to his client as a ​“wise guy,” assigning Conklin an extrajudicial motive.

Wolak, afterwards, argued that the footage showed probable cause on every count. After nearly causing a collision in the roadway, he said, Serfilippi should have turned over his identification and then not slammed the door shut. ​“Who’s in control of this situation? Mr. Serfilippi could have ended it right then and there by providing his identification,” he said, of the conversation between Conklin and the homeowner through the closed front door. ​“Det. Conklin asks again for a license, identification, date of birth. The plaintiff said he never refused, but he also never gave it, which is a refusal.”

The jury left to begin deliberations at 12:11 p.m.

Four hours later, at 4:04 p.m., around the time that they were usually dismissed for the day, the jury sent out a note with three handwritten questions for Meyer.

“Can we award punitive damages if there is no evidence of malicious prosecution or evidence of false arrest?” (No.)

“If there is no evidence of false arrest, can we determine that the arresting officer acted with malice?” (Yes.)

“Can you come into the room to field questions?” (No.)

Shortly after, at 4:47 p.m., the jurors sent out another note, declaring that they had reached a verdict. The clerk read each line of the four-page verdict form aloud, stating that the plaintiff had not proven a single disputed fact needed to establish the false arrest and malicious prosecution claims. Each juror then individually said that they agreed with the verdict as read.

Outside the courthouse, Conklin declined to comment as he entered his vehicle, parked in a reserved spot for police.

Serfilippi, meanwhile, said on the courthouse steps that he didn’t consider the verdict a loss.

“I wanted to expose a rogue cop, and I did that. The citizens of New Haven got to see how these two police acted,” he said. ​“Even though the complaint read Serfilippi v. Conklin and Rentkowicz, I really brought it on behalf of all the citizens of New Haven, especially those people who don’t have the intellectual and financial wherewithal and community standing that I do. If this is the way that they act and speak and behave toward somebody like myself, I can only imagine how they’d treat someone without the means I have.”

He added, ​“I don’t think that Det. Conklin has heard the last from the people of the City of New Haven. Today’s case is over; the people are not done. I promise you that.”