A former New York police department sergeant has filed a $10 billion federal civil rights lawsuit against a list of law enforcement and court officials in New Jersey (MARCHISOTTO v. MALIK et al (3:20-cv-20426), New Jersey District Court).
The case is not about the money, he said, but justice. In the court filing, he says, “I would gladly donate every penny to a charity. But it’s time to send a message to the New Jersey Courts run by clown judges, who believe they are above the law.”
John Marchisotto says his civil rights were violated when officers came into his home to take away his guns. The invasion and everything that happened after that are retaliation for Mr. Marchisotto filing another federal lawsuit against many of the people named in this case.
The complaint filed in the US District Court in New Jersey says in part, “Middlesex County Sheriff’s Police Officers … New Jersey State Police along with dozens of heavily armed police personnel, entered my home displaying their high-powered military-style long guns drawn, terrorizing my family. They came to my home to execute a false TERPO petition to seize my licensed firearms. However, their basis of the TERPO search warrant was a complete sham to punish me for the Federal Lawsuit I filed against the State of New Jersey, Middlesex County, the judicial and non-judicial defendants. They knew I was a retired NYPD police sergeant and out of retaliation, they came after my guns.”
TERPO is an Extreme Risk Protective Order act. It was created in New Jersey in 2018 and allows anyone to seek the protective order against anyone else who “poses a danger of causing bodily inquiry to self or others by possessing or purchasing a firearm.”
— Press release, A Former New York Police Department Sergeant has filed a $10 Billion Federal Civil Rights Lawsuit Against a List of Law
Hang in there John! Noone is above the law. I’ll be monitoring your case. Best of luck.
I have to wonder if John would have been one of those coming through another’s door to execute an ERPO…
Everyone knows these laws are Unconstitutional so I have mixed feelings for this guy.
Unless you know the individual involved, your comment only demonstrates yor own anti-police sentiments. As a retired LEO, I remember when the state of Commiefornia passed legislation for Police Departments to be notified of Restraining Orders, and to confiscate firearms. The Chief asked my partner and I, (the Lt. and Sgt. In charge of firearms training) and we told him that if the state wanted to do that, fine, let THEM fo it, our officers should not be involved, and that became our policy.
Grandparent has a valid question. I was never a cop, but I did wear a uniform for years. You know and I know that refusing to obey an order puts your ass at risk of disciplinary action. You can lose your job and benefits along with any retirement for refusing to obey an order.
A cop is expected to execute warrants. I suppose you probably did a few. Did you agree 100% with each and ever warrant with which you were associated? Did you question some of them? Did you ever refuse to participate in one?
Maybe the most important question is, was each and every warrant JUSTIFIED?
You may have your anecdote, but we know how things work in real life.
That doesn’t even get into the issue of no-knock warrants.
yup. Have to agree 100% of the time every time in every job you ever do. If not you’re just a bad person who sold their soul. Should probably castigate every cop since there’s no way to be one morally. They’re just stasi, lets get rid of the profession as a whole.
I supervised Investigations from 1991-2005, in 1990, my agency wrote 8 search warrants, in 1991, we wrote 35, ( I took over Investigations in September) in 1992 I stopped counting at 101. We continued in the 100’s each year. I had faith in all of our search warrants. I generally had the supervising Judge sign our warrants. I never participated in, or allowed, any questionable warrants. Shortly after I took over Investigations, I went Chukar hunting with a new Chief, who remained past my retirement. I told him as we were driving, “I am a loyal employee, and supervisor, but if you want a ‘yes man,’ you have the wrong guy.” We had differences over the years, but he never asked, and I never crossed any lines.
8 warrants to 100+ in two years. Sounds legit
I agree with Muckraker’s mixed feelings.
The last I heard, NYPD didn’t have conscription. With plenty of other jobs – many in which people defend others from crime – and even plenty of other police departments (many not far from NYC), he chose to dedicate his life to the enforcement of one of the most unconstitutional codes of law in the US, in service to Bloomberg and DeBlasio.
Agree. When I hear “but, I’ll lose my job and pension”, I think of the cops who watched the people in Berkley (and other places) get beaten with baseball bats while the cops sat in their cars.
Don’t expect the citizens to defend you when you care more about your pension than someone’s life. (My job has no pension plan.) We all have rent/mortgages/children/ debts/elderly parents
I’d quit if my boss told me to do something soooo unethical.
It’s called selling your soul for money.
Victoria,
Exactly! I’d go a step further and state that enforcing the countless BS laws of NYC (or Chicago, or LA), is almost categorically unethical. The only difference between this Nuremberg Defense and the original is that some of the Wehrmacht didn’t volunteer.
It called morality. Something most people forget. Just because you are given a warrant to enforce doesn’t mean its constitutional. The police should know as much about the evidence as the judge who issued the warrant. And if the cop believes there isn’t enough evidence? Then don’t carry out the warrant.
And if they fire you? You sue them for ordering you to do something illegal. Start an email trail about this to lawyers,, police union reps, and city council and mayor.
What does he expect living in a kommunist state. When sleepy/creepy joe takes over it will get worse. He will have his jack-booted gestapo thugs enforce his tyrannical reign. Wouldn’t be surprised if he is having red/black armbands with swastikas made for his henchmen. 🤬
When they do, we just hand them fresh cut flowers, cooperate, smile and tell them to have a nice day.REALLY!
It only intensifies under a Harris Administration.
The good news is they will continue to turn on each other.
Wishing the best for Sgt Marchisotto. Of course his rights were violated! That’s what governments do.
I have little to no confidence in Law Enforcement and this is just another example. Out West we have some elected County Sheriff’s who follow the US Constitution.
“I spent my adult life as a police officer and I know what is legal and what is not” HAAAHAAA
“As a police officer, he also received extensive training in the proper use of guns.” HAAAHAAAHAAA
I’d like to see the other side of this story. This article is very thin on details.
It’s NJ. The NJSP are openly and publicly proud that their uniforms resemble Not Z uniforms. Laws are just things NJSP use to lock up whoever the NJSP think is not complying with whatever the NJSP think they should comply with. They will lock you up for things that are clearly not against the law. Then the prosecutor will prosecute the case until you either get convicted, or plead out. NJ has been a tyrannical police state for a long time.
I believe in forgiveness and repentance. Maybe this guy was a JBT and maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he has seen the error of his former ways and regrets his previous choices and actions. The enemy of my enemy is my friend so I am willing to overlook his past transgressions if he has any.
The federal court case is filed by him, pro se . . . i.e., he doesn’t have a lawyer and is representing himself.
In essence, that claims he filed a federal lawsuit against a state judge and that he, personally, then attempted to serve process on the judge in his chambers (which strikes me as a rather silly stunt, especially given that under Federal Rule 4(c)(2) process can only be served by a person over 18 who is not a party to the lawsuit). He claims the judge then retaliated by making false accusations that the plaintiff threatened the judge in his chambers with a gun when plaintiff attempted to serve process, and thereafter unleased the NJ goon squad on him via a red flag order.
I have zero idea whether his allegations are true or not. It would not shock me if they are true, nor would it shock me if turns out that this guy is a run-of-the-mill vexatious pro se litigant (and there are plenty of them out there).
But I can say that cases brought by pro se litigants in federal court, seeking billions of dollars in damages from everybody concerned (and these kinds of lawsuits are hardly uncommon), generally wind up having a pretty short shelf life. While occasionally one may have merit, the vast majority do nothing but waste court time and resources, and accordingly judges have a rather jaundiced view of them.
Federal court litigation is not a casual pursuit. If you have a good claim, find yourself a good lawyer. If nobody will take your case, that might tell you something . . . .
Which brings us back to ‘I was a cop my entire working life, I know the law better than anybody, including attorneys and judges, so I don’t have to look anything up, I just know it’.
Yeah, that works when you’re ‘on the job’, if the local judges just let you do whatever.
It all falls apart when you bring it into your personal life.
Tenant doesn’t pay the rent and trashes your house? Just file for eviction and ask for a ten billion dollar judgment.
Oh, landlord tenant law requires you to have sent proper notice to the tenant first and you didn’t do it? Well, you got screwed, it can’t be your fault you didn’t follow the rules, you’re a cop.
Now does everyone (including NRA) understand the ultimate goal of these bulls**t new laws? Make the bast**ds pay my friend, they should have to pay for every time they use it as a weapon.
I was told these laws were to protect us from gang violence plaguing the inner cities.
Laws don’t exist to keep us safe.
“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”
Quote from the character Dr. Floyd Ferris in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.
Another famous quote.
I come here just for Montana Actual’s comments. True story.
Jerry, is that you? How’s the coffee tonight? You and the other boys still looking for my p80 purchase history? haha
Cops are the biggest most violent gang out there. Disarming them is a good thing. Citizems should be armed not government employees.
So cops renounce their citizenship? A cop has as much right to be armed as any other US citizen.
If you were told that, it was either a lie, or a joke.
Despite the billions of dollars spent to combat gang violence, we don’t seem to have made much progress. The real progress made, has been denying law-abiding citizens the right to defend themselves. The three biggest cities in America have the most crime, and the most undefended populace suffering as a result of that crime.
LEOs do not have a super right above any other citizen on owning or carrying a gun. Citizens in most states are limited to the guns they may own or carry.
First question is: why was he deemed a threat that they used a TERPO warrant, did he throw down harming physical threats to anyone before or after filing his first lawsuit……couple videos of police responding at his house.
https://petitiontofiremuddusermalik.wordpress.com/
He should take that $10 million, keep one and donate the other $9 million to SAF or start up a fund for other firearms owners who are victims of unconstitutional laws.
Gov. The article says 10 Billion. This isn’t pocket change.
Doh! That is a ‘B’. I don’t know if the lawyers need $9 billion.
These laws do not seem to go far enough.
Why not do the following?
* Prohibit them from practicing law or medicine
* Prohibit them from voting
* Prohibit them from having any sort of intimate contact or relationship.
* Require them to wear a distinctive badge on the left sleeve when out in public
@MTE
That’s the next step in the Democrat playbook…after Biden / Harris implement a nationwide Federal Red Flag law or E.O.
You’re retired and still living in NJ? There’s your first problem.
Yes, NJ and US gun laws are infringements upon the Second Amendment and the natural right of human beings to defend themselves and others.
But what’s the background to this story? This post is too thin to take more than the generic side of the Constitution.
What is he accused of and what evidence is there?
If it’s not about the money sue them for ten bucks and win the case.
Then it is about the money. Like it or not, the only way to punish wrongdoers in a civil case is through their pocketbook. When the state is wrong, none gets fired, no one goes to jail, they just shrug it off and continue along. The previous victims of injustice don’t get any help at all.
If you don’t like huge payouts, maybe you could change the laws and put corrupt states workers in jail for their actions.
Nice little collection of registered guns you got there. Would be a shame if something happened to them.
Sooo…did you do the corrupt NY cop persecution of any gun owner’s in your long carreer ossifer? Roust black men? Harrass women? It’s hard for me to sympathize dude. You ain’t “special” anymore.
That’s right waterhead…Broad brush the police like a snot nosed twerp and lay it all on the doorsteps of the individual who filed the suit…Your dribble is totally irrelevant to an extremely important case. Why would you stoop so low to do that?
Stop pretending to be Debbie. Nobody believes you anyway.
Nah that’s HER(him?)…Princess is mad at me. Still shilling Turkish terrorist gats I’m sure. I have no idea why ya’ll think she’s somehow “special”.
This guy is what some would call litigious, but he’s won a few and lost a few so he’s just exercising his right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Like most disputes, it’s best to watch this one play out in the courts.
Here’s a couple interesting matters he has been involved in:
“On March 29, 2005, plaintiff John F. Marchisotto, a former sergeant in the New York City Police Department, initiated this action against the New York City Police Department, the City of New York (“the City”), and Carla Hollywood, alleging sexual harassment and retaliation in employment in violation of Title VII. The case proceeded to trial, and the jury found the City liable for retaliation against Marchisotto, awarding him $300,000 in compensatory damages.
Currently before the Court are Marchisotto’s application for attorneys’ fees and costs in the amount of $156,514.92, and his request for sanctions in the amount of $25,000. For the reasons that follow, Marchisotto’s application for attorneys’ fees and costs is GRANTED, in part, and DENIED, in part. The City, therefore, SHALL pay Marchisotto the amount of $21,012 in attorneys’ fees. Marchisotto’s motion to compel and for sanctions is DENIED.”
“EX-COP SUIT IS FLUSHED
By Austin Fenner
January 30, 2009 | 6:39am
A former cop seeking line-of-doody disability pay for breaking a finger on an overflowing toilet is spit out of luck, an appeals court ruled yesterday.
The state Appellate Division tossed John Marchisotto’s lawsuit against the NYPD, saying he should have called for backup.
Marchisotto, 38, “knew the proper procedure was to call maintenance for a professional to handle the job,” the five-judge panel found, siding with the NYPD Pension Board’s award of ordinary disability pay.
The ruling said Marchisotto’s 2004 injury in a Housing Authority record room was not obtained “in the performance of ordinary employment duties.”
Reached at his Staten Island home, a surprised Marchisotto told The Post, “I lost? Let me call my lawyer.”
Well, I went and did it, I just had to look up Carla Hollywood.
“SHE ‘BRUSHED’ ME – DEMOTED COP SUES OVER ‘PUSHY’ LADY BOSS
By Carl Campanile March 19, 2005 | 5:00am
An NYPD sergeant says he was demoted last year after refusing the repeated sexual advances of a supervisor who brushed her breasts up against him and asked to massage his back with strawberry lotion.
In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court, Sgt. John Marchisotto, 34, who works in a unit responsible for monitoring surveillance cameras, said Lt. Carla Hollywood made him “very uncomfortable” for nearly two years.
Marchisotto, 34, said there was sexual tension from the start. The two met in October 2003, when Marchisotto was moved to the Video Interactive Patrol Enhancement Response unit at the Stapleton Houses on Staten Island.
Marchisotto, a 13-year NYPD veteran, claims Hollywood sat next to him at his desk and asked if he was married, the suit says.
“Yes,” he said.
“Happily?” Hollywood asked.
When Marchisotto said he was in a happy marriage, Hollywood barked back, “Well, no one married is ever happy,” according to the suit.
Marchisotto said the flirting didn’t end there. The suit claims Hollywood then “brushed her chest against [Marchisotto’s] back” while the two were on the job.
Marchisotto said Hollywood inappropriately touched him so he would “feel uncomfortable.”
And the sexual harassment didn’t stop there, he said.
Hollywood would call him at work up to six times a day when she was off duty, the suit says.
“I just wanted to hear your voice on the phone,” she’d allegedly say.
In February 2004, Marchisotto said he sent a letter to Internal Affairs outlining the harassment.
He never heard back.
The situation came to a boil last year on Valentine’s Day when Hollywood went to Marchisotto’s office and massaged his neck.
He told her to stop and that her “sexual advances were not welcome.”
The suit says that’s when things got steamy. Hollywood took out a bottle of strawberry lotion and said she “wanted to rub some on his shoulders.”
When Marchisotto said no, Hollywood stormed out of his office.
After that, Hollywood told two sergeants and another housing cop that she wanted to do “everything to ruin [Marchisotto’s] life,” according to the suit.
Marchisotto said Hollywood then started a bogus probe to try to get him fired for threatening her and getting other cops to say they had spotted him “talking to himself in the bathroom.”
Marchisotto said he was talking to a friend on his cellphone.
The lawsuit claims Marchisotto was demoted on March 3, 2004, without explanation.
Marchisotto, who received several negative evaluations from Hollywood, said he was transferred to a mess hall where cops eat lunch and given nothing to do.
“I’m sitting in a room looking at the walls,” Marchisotto said.
He said that he even wrote a letter to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly about his ordeal but that he never got a response.
Marchisotto is suing the city for unspecified damages because the NYPD “failed to take adequate measures to stop it.”
He said, she said
* Lt. Carla Hollywood asked Sgt. John Marchisotto whether he was married when she met him in October 2003. When Marchisotto said he was happily married, Hollywood responded, “Well, no one married is ever happy.”
* Marchisotto claims Hollywood “brushed her chest against [his] back” on one occasion when they were on duty.
* Marchisotto said Hollywood would call him at work up to six times a day when she was off duty.
“I just wanted to hear your voice on the phone,” Hollywood would say to him.
* Marchisotto repeatedly demanded that Hollywood stop flirting with him because her “sexual advances were not welcome.”
* On Valentine’s Day 2004, Hollywood took out a bottle of strawberry lotion and said she “wanted to rub some on his shoulders.” When Marchisotto said no, Hollywood stormed out of his office.
* Marchisotto said Hollywood started a probe to try and get him fired by getting other cops to say they had spotted him “talking to himself in the bathroom.”
minor 49 IQ…Nothing you copy and paste is admissible and even if it was it does not compare to the antics of those named in the suit. Antics that are waaaaaay too long for an incompetent, biased, pasty mouth lowlife like you to copy and paste and plaster on this forum. Once again…You Have No Podium.
?
Fake Debbie, just go away already. Your post doesn’t even match what you are complaining about, whoever you really are.
There is a fake Deborah, but I’m not so sure that’s it, Haz…
Ignore the troll.
This is stage two of his tantrum. Almost there.
You have pretty lips
Thank you ma’am!
“Thank you ma’am!”
Little ‘minor’ has a kind chin.
The kind of a chin a trucker’s sweaty nutsack rests on… 🙂
I wonder if he owned banned weapons. As a former cop they get to own big mags, ARs, hollow points and all that stuff NJ slaves can’t.
I have never understood NJs laws about HPs.
It just doesn’t make sense.
“It just doesn’t make sense.”
It does, actually.
It’s ignorant hysteria in action. Someone sees a bullshit Hollywood movie where some authority figure of some sort proclaims a hollow point bullet is a super-deadly “Cop killer” bullet.
The movie-watcher “does something about it” and contacts their state representative. The state rep. agrees and drafts a law. The law is debated by other reps who are equally ignorant as to how guns really work, and the law gets passed.
The stupid rep. get a warm-and-fuzzy feeling about “making communities safer” with those evil cop-killer bullets now banned.
See how it works? It all makes perfect sense to a Leftist. It pushes all the right emotional buttons, and our rights suffer because of it…
poor copper didn’t get a carve out for that one. boo hoo, he gets to get his shit red flagged like the rest of the peons.
I hope he wins and drives this law into the ground though.
The term ‘former’ in former NYPD is very damning.
The good cops been gone.
Meh. He’s a professional plaintiff.
Correct, he got $300 K with his first bite of the Apple and he wants another taste really bad.
High-powered…long guns??? 😂😂😂
I thought that he knew something about firearms…..
(I supposed that the rifles _might_ have been 7.62, but I sincerely doubt it.
Shouldn’t we be cheering any lawsuit that challenges Red Flag laws? Would we pee all over such a suit just because a radical Dim mayor/governor was the one filing it? would we pee all over such a suit just because the ACLU filed it?
The Leftists attack all along the line, everyday. Shouldn’t we support anyone who attacks the Left, whatever the reason?
Yes, we should. Anything that weakens the Left, even if it’s another faction of the Left, is worth supporting — at least so far as it weakens them.
“Shouldn’t we support anyone who attacks the Left, whatever the reason?”
Why yes, carry on in the finest tradition of conservative Republican elitist politics, Mitch McConnell appreciates your position.
Make New Jersey pay! It’s a shithole and Trump should of built a wall around it.
Sad thing that it’s the taxpayers who will pay him. Like in Illinois, there’s lots of us who didn’t vote for anti-2A politicians, but we’re stuck with them. No one likes Kim Foxx (cops, prosecutors, everyone I talked to), but she “won” the election. I wonder how many REAL votes she got, not including the cemetery votes.
Best of luck to the former Police Sgt.
Cops doing the wrong thing, makes them as bad as the criminals! It only takes one or two bad apples to make the whole barrel stink!
I don’t care if he is Satan in drag; I hope he wins big. But then I don’t require a lifetime of ideological purity to wish someone well in suing an overreaching government.
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