Judge dismisses charges against 3 Connecticut officers accused of mistreating paralyzed prisoner

A Connecticut judge on Friday dismissed criminal charges against three current and former New Haven police officers who were accused of mistreating prisoner Richard “Randy” Cox after he was paralyzed in the back of a police van in 2022.

Judge David Zagaja dropped the cases against Oscar Diaz, Jocelyn Lavandier and Luis Rivera after granting them a probation program that allows charges to be erased from defendants' records, saying their conduct was not malicious. Two other officers, Betsy Segui and Ronald Pressley, pleaded guilty last year to misdemeanor reckless endangerment and received no jail time.

Cox, 40, was left paralyzed from the chest down on June 19, 2022, when the police van, which had no seat belts, braked hard to avoid an accident, sending him head-first into a metal partition while his hands were cuffed behind his back. He had been arrested on charges of threatening a woman with a gun, which were later dismissed.

“I can’t move. I’m going to die like this. Please, please, please help me,” Cox said in the van minutes after being injured, according to police video. He later was found to have broken his neck.

Diaz, who was driving the van, brought Cox to the police department, where officers mocked Cox and accused him of being drunk and faking his injuries, according to surveillance and body-worn camera footage. Officers dragged Cox out of the van and around the police station before placing him in a holding cell before paramedics brought him to a hospital.

Before pulling him out of the van, Lavandier told Cox to move his leg and sit up, according to an internal affairs investigation report. Cox says “I can’t move” and Lavandier says “You’re not even trying.”

New Haven State's Attorney John P. Doyle Jr.'s office said prosecutors and Cox did not object to the charges being dismissed.

Defense lawyers said that while the officers were sympathetic to what happened to Cox, they did not cause his injuries or make them worse. The three officers whose cases were dismissed were scheduled to go on trial next month.

“We don’t think that there was sufficient evidence to prove her guilt or any wrongdoing,” said Lavandier's attorney, Dan Ford. "This is a negotiated settlement that avoids the risk of having go through the emotional toll of a trial.”

Rivera's lawyer, Raymond Hassett, called the decision to charge the officers “unjust and misplaced.”

“The actions of the Police Chief and City Mayor in targeting the officers were a misguided effort to deflect attention from the police department shortcomings in managing the department and ensuring proper protocols were in place and followed,” Hassett said in a statement.

Attorneys for Cox and Diaz did not immediately return phone and email messages Friday. Cox's lawyer, Louis Rubano, has said Cox and his family hoped the criminal cases would end quickly with plea bargains.

New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said city officials disagreed with the judge's decision to dismiss the charges.

“What happened to Randy was tragic and awful,” he said in a statement.

The case drew outrage from civil rights advocates including the NAACP, along with comparisons to the Freddie Gray case in Baltimore. Cox is Black, while all five officers who were arrested are Black or Hispanic. Gray, who also was Black, died in 2015 after he suffered a spinal injury while handcuffed and shackled in a Baltimore police van.

The case also led to reforms at the New Haven police department as well as a statewide seat belt requirement for prisoners.

In 2023, the city of New Haven agreed to settle a lawsuit by Cox for $45 million.

New Haven police fired Segui, Diaz, Lavandier and Rivera for violating police conduct policies, while Pressley retired and avoided an internal investigation. Diaz appealed his firing and got his job back. Segui lost the appeal of her firing, while appeals by Lavandier and Rivera remain pending.

FILE - This combo of photos provided by the Connecticut State Police, shows, from left, New Haven, Conn., police officers Oscar Diaz, Betsy Segui, Jocelyn Lavandier, Luis Rivera and Ronald Pressley. (Connecticut State Police via AP, File)

FILE - Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump takes part in a march for justice for Richard "Randy" Cox to the New Haven Police Department on July 8, 2022, in New Haven, Conn. (Arnold Gold/New Haven Register via AP, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — A second suspect in the stray-bullet killing of a 7-month-old baby on a Brooklyn street was arrested Friday, police said, two days after a shooting the police commissioner called “a tragedy that truly shocks the conscience.”

Matthew Rodriguez, 18, was apprehended in Pennsylvania by New York Police Department detectives working with U.S. Marshals, the NYPD said.

The suspected shooter, 21-year-old Amuri Greene, was arrested shortly after the drive-by gunfire that killed Kaori Patterson-Moore. Greene pleaded not guilty to murder and other charges at an arraignment Friday night and was held without bail.

Kaori was in her stroller when a two men sped down a street on a moped Wednesday afternoon. Greene, riding on the back of the vehicle, fired into a group of people on a street corner, according to a court complaint.

Kaori's mother, Lianna Charles-Moore, told the New York Post that after hearing what she initially believed were fireworks, she was comforting her startled 2-year-old son — who had been grazed by a bullet — when she looked to her left and saw her baby daughter bleeding. The infant had been shot in the head.

“My daughter was innocent. She didn’t deserve that," Charles-Moore told the newspaper. She said her daughter was just about starting to crawl and had recently begun saying “Mama.”

Greene told police he was aiming for another person in the crowd, according to the court complaint.

His attorney, Jay Schwitzman, said after court that he would conduct “an independent and thorough investigation of the facts and circumstances of this tragic incident.”

Police said that after the shooting, the moped sped and crashed into a car two blocks away, hurling both men off the vehicle. Greene was injured and soon was hospitalized in police custody, but the moped driver fled.

Authorities haven't yet released court papers that detail Rodriguez's alleged role. But they haven't indicated they were looking for anyone other than the gunman — alleged to have been Greene — and the moped driver.

Police didn't immediately have information on how the men may know each other or where Rodriguez lives; no working telephone number for him could immediately be found. Police charges against him were pending.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch expressed heartbreak and outrage over Kaori's death.

“This is a terrible day in our city, a tragedy that truly shocks the conscience,” Tisch said at a news briefing Wednesday.

This image taken from video provided by the New York Police Department shows New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, flanked by Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, left, and Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny, speaking during a news conference, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in New York. (NYPD via AP)