That’s Stephanie Adams who nypost.com describes as Playboy’s first lesbian Playmate. According to her web site, goddessy.com, she’s an author (Goddessy and the New Order of Archangels), astrologer (psychic, tarot and love readings) and aspiring web entrepreneur (aromatherapy oil and incense). And now, courtesy of New York’s finest and a jury award, she’s also a lot wealthier . . .
Adams was in a NYC taxi in 2006 when she got into a tiff with her cabby.
Adams testified that the driver started cursing at her and threatening her, so she called 911 for help — and the crazed cabby followed suit, but made up a tale that she had threatened to shoot him.
Five officers were sent to the scene on high alert, and Adams had several guns pointed at her by plainclothes cops.
She testified that they searched her bags and, despite her following their orders not to move and to keep her hands up, one of them shoved her face down in the street, and kept her there with pressure on her neck and her lower back.
He “mashed my face,” she testified.
She sued the city for excessive use of force. But one of the responding officers begged to differ with her account of what went down.
Sgt. John Rajan testified that she had obeyed his order not to move, but didn’t react when he told her to lie on the ground, so he had to make her do so with “a controlled drop to the ground.”
She also sued the cabby who may not have had a full grasp on the situation. Or reality.
The cabbie who sparked the incident, Eric Darko, defaulted in the suit and was stripped of his hack license after telling TLC investigators that he thought the self-made model was a werewolf who’d threatened him with her “vampire teeth.”
The city also argued that, based on the photos of Adams posing with guns on her website (since taken down), her claim of being traumatized by five coppers pointing their guns at her was perhaps overstating things for dramatic effect. Ultimately, though, the jury sided with the sorceress centerfold celeb, awarding her $1,200,000.
A juror who asked not to be identified called the pictures “a smokescreen,” and said that for the panel, the smoking gun was the spine and neck injuries the spirituality writer suffered in the incident.
“No one should be treated that way,” the juror said.
Given Big Apple cops’ past performance with handguns, Adams’ discomfort at having five of them point their heaters at her was certainly understandable. And as her website prominently states, Good Always Overcomes Evil. We’re sure the taxpayers of the city, county and state of New York will be glad to hear that.
No trigger discipline on that 5946. It would appear she is definitely NYPD trained.
As to her bilking the public, it is simply welfare via the court system.Anyone with a pulse and a beef with the cops can get a handout if they know the right lawyer and possess the right assets.
bilking the public? the cops abused their power (shocking, I know), she got hurt, so she sued their asses. what’s wrong with that? I know that ultimately this comes out of the city / state budget, meaning the taxpayer, so in that case they should cut the guilty cops’ pay / benefits as punishment. seems simple to me.
+1
I support police. They have a tough job. It doesn’t give them a right to be assholes or to abuse their authority.
i do too, but 1.2 million? what about 10 grand? people are so hell bent on trying to bring down police, what about the million dollars our failing school systems lost or numerous programs that money could have actually helped?
Nice bod. She should skip the side businesses and go straight to video.
If her “beef with the cops” is for behavior that would be criminal if a non-cop did it to her, then I don’t think she’s “bilking” anyone. I am not anti-police at all, but should they get away with unnecessary violence because the jury award comes from taxpayer money? There is a feedback loop. If the city is going broke because of such jury awards, then voters will eventually either leave the city (because services go to hell) or vote in new management. Not perfect, but better than encouraging/condoning/ignoring overuse of force.
Maybe instead of it winding up coming out of the taxpayer’s pockets, maybe it comes out of the NYPD budget for the year. Then maybe they have to sell off some assets or lay people off. Then maybe the NYPD would get rid of the idiot cops in question and go after THEM in order to recover the financial losses incurred by their atrocious handling of the situation.
Well said.
In response to ST’s comment:
I say Good for her. She wasn’t “Bilking” the system.
Put yourself in her shoes. Captain Werewolf the NY cabbie goes bonkers, you call the cops because the cabbie is threatening you. Then the cops show up and draw-down on you then rough you up when you don’t move fast enough for them. If it were me, I would have been pissed too.
I can imagine that she was simply dumbstruck that the cops that She Called were suddenly pointing guns at her and could not believe that they were ordering her to the ground.
If the NYPD officers had acted professionally they wouldn’t have incurred 1.2mil in damages. End of story.
What he said.
If jack-booted thugs rob me of my civil rights, I will absolutely sue for as much as is possible. It is the only way for a municipality to take notice and TRAIN THEIR POLICE PROPERLY.
NYC spends more than that on light bulbs. Only way they’d notice is if it were in the many hundreds of millions, and even then they wouldn’t learn anything from it.
Much as I love NYC, thanks to the voting public, it’s simply a lost cause.
The state can be saved, maybe, if someone manages to come up with a governor who isn’t a complete retard.
I was not there, so let me offer that preface right now.
But what this boils down to is a lot of he-saids against one she said. And I have reason to doubt her side of the story.
*****The city also argued that, based on the photos of Adams posing with guns on her website (since taken down), her claim of being traumatized by five coppers pointing their guns at her was perhaps overstating things for dramatic effect. Ultimately, though, the jury sided with the sorceress centerfold celeb, awarding her $1,200,000.****
This is an acknowledgement on the part of the jury that her story had false details.To wit, she’s posing in one of the pictures with an NYPD issue service pistol in a police ‘getup’ that likely came from some officer’s gear bag. I do realize she could have acquired that gun anywhere, but her location being in New York posing with a handgun on the approved list for NYPD carry leads me to believe this vixen had friends with a badge. Arguing that she was traumatized thus has no merit, and if that part of her account is false what else is ‘exaggerated’?
Call me cynical, but this sounds like a situation where she was drunk,disorderly, or resisting arrest and making a nuisance of herself to the police. She was thus controlled, booked, and processed . Rather than being an adult about the matter she decides to use her looks and “creative storytelling” to paint a picture of abuse to save her reputation and for a nice healthy paycheck.
The prosecutor made no claim that she was drinking, much less drunk. I think he would have raised it at trial if she was. The cop who threw her to the ground admitted that she was wearing skintight clothing and that she could not have been concealing a gun. He also admitted that he never made her “assume the position” for a patdown. Finally, she called the cops because the cabbie thought that she was a vampire.
Now we get to the gun photos. You handle guns, do you not? Well, how about if I get a few friends, we’ll all point loaded guns at you, scream and slam you to the ground, and then you can tell me that you’re not traumatized.
“she was wearing skintight clothing and that she could not have been concealing’
Maybe not a gun on her yet uhm have you ever heard about how Genghis Khan is believed to have been killed by a captured and naked Chinese princess whose family the Mongols just destroyed? Trust me, you’d rather get shot.
Luckily for everyone it didn’t go as far as Ghengis did.
guns are pointed at you by five members of a class of people that have a history of getting off after accidentally shooting people. how is this not traumatic?
I have guns all over the place. I go shooting with my folks and my friends (not as much as I should, but that’s not the point). No one has ever pointed a gun at me. If they did I would absolutely lose my shit and if it was law enforcement (and I lived through it) I would sue them as hard as I could.
Ironic that the jurors paid for what’s her name’s tax-funded award.
The verdict cost each New Yorker about fifteen cents.
too much
Not enough.
“Call me cynical, but this sounds like a situation where she was drunk,disorderly, or resisting arrest and making a nuisance of herself to the police. She was thus controlled, booked, and processed.”
Do you have any facts from the incident to back up your assertions or are they just figments of your imagination? How can you ignore the factual revelations surrounding the incident and key on some made up “storytelling” of your own? Did you read the article? If anyone was crazy and disorderly it was the cabby first, and then the the throng of paramilitary responders. She deserved the award, and more in my opinion. New York is in need of some strong lessons when it comes to cops, politicians and 2A issues.
And oh yeah, you’re cynical.
Would you willing get down on a NYC sidewalk? I would not do so willingly. No gun no probable cause to treat anyone like that. While police serve a vital function two words that used to be on all the cars are often forgotten. Protect and Serve.
For 1.2 million bucks I would lick a new York sidewalk.
I’ll put a dollar in the kitty. If I can find 1.199 million Facebook friends to back my play, you’ll be in big trouble.
+$1
I can understand her being pissed, but why call the police because a cabby is yelling at you in the street for being a werewolf/vampire? Doesnt exactly sound like a swat worthy incident. Just tell him to fuck off and leave. And I’m glad she won her case but I’d prefer they made the officers pay for it instead of us.
Also, I would gladly volunteer to be pushed to the ground for $1.2 mil. Any takers?
So you’d let the same bunch of blue clad ninjas who murdered Amadou Diallo and who shoved a plunger handle up Abner Louima’s a$$ point their guns at you and mash you into the sidewalk. Really?
I think the choice of kissing pavement or not is removed when a Glock is at your head. But you are very good at making your point clear.
She was in the taxi not in the street talking to him. Maybe the taxi was moving at the time, maybe he locked the doors on her, I don’t know I wasn’t there, but being trapped in a car with someone freaking out that you are a werewolf with vampire teeth and threatening you sure does not sound like fun to me. Sounds like the opening sequence of Hostel 3.
If anything I think knowledge of firearms would make it more traumatic having firearms pointed at you. I don’t point my weapon at anything I don’t intend to destroy, a police officer pointing his weapon at me says “I intend to destroy you.”
I am pro law enforcement. I don’t agree with the settlement. I do see the photos of her with a legit NYPD shield and gun. If any call comes in with a person with a firearm the police treat it, as is and use their firearms for safety. She was not shot at and with all the insurance scams going on and doctors falsifying reports for a lawsuit. I definitely would not be surprised that she has no injury at all. People claim false injuries when involved in a car accident. A minor ding and get awarded thousands not to mention, many attorneys work with certain doctors that perform surgery and false diagnosis for a lump sum.
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