A federal judge has allowed the lawsuit of a prominent NYPD critic who alleges police officials leaked details of her sexual assault to move forward, bucking the city’s attempts to have the case tossed.
In a decision last month, U.S. District Judge Frederic Block sided with advocate Dana Rachlin on several counts, allowing her lawsuit to proceed with allegations that the police department allows untraceable “ghost access” to sensitive case files, including records on the 2017 sexual assault she reported to the NYPD.
Rachlin, who once had close ties to high-ranking NYPD officials including former Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, and worked closely with officers at several Brooklyn precincts, has spent the past two years locked in a bitter legal fight with the city.
Her suit names a number of former NYPD officials who gained prominence during the administration of Mayor Eric Adams, including Maddrey, Kaz Daughtry, who later rose to the positions of deputy police commissioner and deputy mayor, and John Chell, another top official who later was appointed chief of department.
“I survived an assault only to be retraumatized by NYPD members using private information to retaliate against me for speaking critically about police brutality,” Rachlin told The City Reporter.
In a lengthy response to Rachlin’s amended complaint filed on Aug. 3, city Corporation Counsel Steven Banks, a Mamdani appointee, denied Rachlin’s allegations and everything related to purported “ghost access” to NYPD files. An NYPD spokesperson didn’t return multiple requests for comment. Nicholas Paolucci, a spokesperson for the Law Department, declined to comment on the ongoing litigation.
Rachlin and the city’s lawyers are due back in court Sept. 30.
Former Friends
For several years before her falling out with the NYPD, Rachlin had worked inside Brooklyn precincts with her nonprofit, NYC Together, targeting neighborhood youth with the goal of diverting them from the criminal justice system while mending strained police-community relationships.
When Rachlin was sexually assaulted in 2017 after a gala for her nonprofit, Maddrey, then an assistant chief leading the NYPD’s Brooklyn North command, met her at the hospital and persuaded the activist to file a police report, her suit says. Rachlin alleges Maddrey assigned Daughtry, who was then a detective, to personally investigate the assault.
Only a handful of officers knew of the incident. Rachlin initially participated in a “controlled call,” where investigators had her phone the alleged assailant on a recorded line, according to NYPD records she obtained that were viewed by The City Reporter. She later decided not to proceed with the investigation, fearing a drawn-out legal process.
Later, Rachlin’s relationship with the NYPD soured as she grew increasingly critical of what she saw as heavy-handed policing methods in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests.
That disagreement came to a head over the leadership of Deputy Inspector Craig Edelman, who commanded Brownsville’s 73rd Precinct, where Rachlin often worked. Edelman’s tactics were catapulted into the nationwide spotlight after an officer shoved a female protester to the ground, smashing her head on the sidewalk, during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, while he stood by and watched.
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As public pressure mounted on then-Mayor Bill de Blasio to take action, Edelman was transferred to a Gun Violence Suppression Unit.
Maddrey had warned Rachlin in a text message that there would be “a lot of blow back from this,” as many within the department linked her to the campaign to oust Edelman, according to text messages previously reviewed by The City Reporter.
Rachlin was soon barred from entering precinct station houses where she had previously worked with youth, and her lawsuit alleges she received a message through a subordinate of then-Deputy Chief John Chell that top officials could “humiliate her at any time.”
In the months that followed Edelman’s reassignment, Rachlin charges, she learned of rumors that she had falsely reported a rape. Anonymous letters were distributed inside a secure locker room at the 61st Precinct station house in Sheepshead Bay, where she had worked closely with police officers and youth, and mailed to an assistant chief in the Brooklyn North command, according to her complaint.
In her original suit, which The City Reporter covered in 2024, Rachlin posited that a member of the NYPD had reviewed her 2017 sexual assault complaint, as the anonymous letters contained confidential information about the investigation.
But in the years since, Rachlin and her attorneys obtained a record of the “access log” to that sexual assault complaint through a Freedom of Information lawsuit.
‘Immutable’ Logs
NYPD policy requires the department to maintain “immutable audit logs” any time its case management system is queried, and all files are password protected to assure they are “used for legitimate law enforcement purposes or other official business of the NYPD.” The suit points to examples where police officers have misused access to these databases to get information on romantic partners, business associates, or neighbors.
The access log in Rachlin’s case, reviewed by The City Reporter, showed dozens of instances in which officers on the Special Victims Unit, and later from various oversight units, reviewed her case.
But to Rachlin’s surprise, the log didn’t include the name of a high-ranking officer in Greenpoint’s 94th Precinct, who she watched access her file when she requested a copy of it back in 2017.
Rachlin and her attorney say they were then informed by a law enforcement source investigating Rachlin’s claims that NYPD systems allow for “ghost access” or “no-peek access” to the case management system. They laid out their allegations about “ghost access” in an amended lawsuit filed in April.
“Ghost access offers cover for individuals looking to retaliate against critics and whistleblowers, stalk victims of domestic violence, curry political favor, serve as mercenaries for ICE, interfere with investigations, or carry out personal vendettas,” said MK Kaishian, Rachlin’s attorney.
Rachlin’s amended lawsuit seeks to force the NYPD to end the alleged “ghost access” and establish a policy to restrict access to sensitive information. She is using what’s called a Monell claim, which allows a person to hold a government agency or municipality accountable for a particular policy that violates constitutional rights.
City attorneys in March moved to stop representing Maddrey in the case, saying that an Internal Affairs Bureau investigation concluded the NYPD’s former top uniformed official had violated policy by failing to report Rachlin’s comments when she initially described rumors about her sexual assault spreading within the department.
Once one of the most powerful members of the NYPD, Maddrey resigned in late 2024, following allegations from a subordinate that he coerced her into giving him sexual favors in exchange for overtime pay. His home has since been raided twice by federal agents, though he has not been charged with any crimes.
Maddrey sued the city in June for refusing to pay his attorney fees. His attorney didn’t return a request for comment.
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