Detective Assigned To Barnard Death Was Sued In Past, Report Says

MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, NY — An investigator assigned to the death of Barnard freshman Tessa Majors has been sued multiple times for alleged misconduct in prior cases, according to reports.

Detective Wilfredo Acevedo has been sued at least four times since 2010 on accusations that the veteran investigator withheld exculpatory evidence, made false accusations against suspects leading to unlawful arrests and used excessive force, Gothamist first reported. The NYPD's conduct in the Majors case had previously been questioned by defense attorneys for allowing a 13-year-old suspect to be questioned without a lawyer present.

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea released a statement showing support for Acevedo, saying that none of the allegations in lawsuits have ever been proved.

"He has never been found to have made a single false statement or falsely arrested anyone by either the Department, the CCRB, any Civil Court or District Attorney," Shea told Gothamist in the statement. "Trying to undermine the case by singling out one investigator, and producing dated and unproven allegations and leaking those to the press, rather than in written form to the court, is the opposite of responsible."

Detectives union reps told the publication that working police rack up lawsuits and complaints due to the nature of the job. It's still likely that defense attorneys may reference the claims in an effort to discredit the detective's work in court, Gothamist reported.

Majors, a freshman at Barnard College, was stabbed to death while walking through Morningside Park in the early evening. The day after the stabbing, a 13-year-old was arrested and charged as a juvenile for crimes such as felony murder, weapons possession and robbery. With a family member present as police questioned him, the teen told how he'd been there as Majors was killed, police said. Officials say that while he admitted having handled the knife, he said that he did not participate in the stabbing.

Majors' killing stoked fears that the street crime once common in New York City decades ago is returning, a premise that police and City Hall officials rejected. The killing also drew comparisons to the 1989 Central Park jogger case, in which black teenagers were arrested in connection with a brutal attack on a white woman in a city park. Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer warned the NYPD to not repeat the same mistakes in that case, which led to five innocent teenagers being wrongfully convicted, the Daily News reported.