ATLANTIC CITY – At age 19, Franco Sydnor was convicted of stabbing his wife’s ex-lover four times.
A few years later, he was hired to be an Atlantic City cop anyway.
In the next two decades, Sydnor, a city detective, has been accused of sexual assault, physical assault, domestic violence and even throwing a handcuffed man into a wishing well, according to details revealed in a federal court hearing this week.
In nearly every incident, the city’s police leadership found no cause to remove Sydnor from the force and he was never charged with a crime while on the force. The city allowed him to continue to work special details at the casinos, earning extra money.
However, a civil rights lawyer told U.S. District Court Judge Jerome B. Simandle on Monday that the allegations show a pattern: the city allows rogue cops to remain on the force, eventually harming people.
Jennifer Bonjean is representing Anthony Moore, a Pennsylvanian man suing Sydnor and the city for what he claims is excessive police force that left him with major head injuries.
Last month, a federal jury in an unrelated excessive force case found the city liable for violating the constitutional rights of Steven Stader, who was mauled by a police dog during his 2013 arrest. The city was ordered it to pay $300,000 in damages to the victim.
In the current case, Bonjean is pursuing the same strategy and seeking more damages from the city.
Sydnor, 41, has been on the force since 2003. His salary is $106,652.
In his lawsuit, Moore — who was intoxicated and attending his brother’s bachelor party — claims Sydnor struck him repeatedly in the head and torso with a baton and kneed him in the ribs while he was being thrown out of Bally’s Casino in October 2012. The incident, which can be seen in the video at the top of this story, was caught on casino surveillance cameras.
Sydnor was on special detail at the casino that night.
Moore is suing the city police department for being “deliberately indifferent” to the need to train, supervise and discipline its officers, citing a “sham” internal affairs system that allowed Sydnor to continue to escalate his violent behavior while on the force, according to the complaint.
Sydnor claims that he didn’t intentionally strike Moore with the baton, but said his injuries were accidental and caused by a baton “grazing” his head.
Steven Glickman, Sydnor’s attorney, said Wednesday that the department hasn’t sustained any excessive force charges against the officer.
“Everything has to be put into context,” Glickman said. “The altercation between the plaintiff and Officer Sydnor occurred after he was assaulted from behind by the plaintiff’s brother.”
Glickman said the plaintiff’s expert in his report said Moore approached Sydnor at least two or three times and that he could have been arrested any one of those times.
Court documents filed by Bonjean shows the Atlantic City knew about Sydnor’s criminal history prior to hiring him as a police officer. He pleaded guilty to fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon after a 1996 incident during which he stabbed a man — his wife’s “ex-husband or boyfriend,” according to court documents — four times in the stomach, chest and back, according to the documents.
In a separate incident, Sydnor was charged in 2002 with making terroristic threats after threatening to kill his lover’s husband, but the charges were dismissed. Emails intercepted by the woman’s husband said Sydnor threatened to kill him “anytime” and that perhaps the newspaper would report that his body was found with his head cut off, according to court documents Bonjean filed.
He was also arrested on charges of assault, criminal mischief and aggravated assault, but wasn’t convicted, according to court documents.
Although Sydnor’s criminal history may not have disqualified him from being hired as a police officer, the nature of his history should have “put the department on high alert that this rookie should be monitored extra closely,” Bonjean wrote in response to a motion to exclude his internal affairs records from the trial.
Glickman, Sydnor’s attorney, wants his records excluded from the trial. Judge Simandle heard arguments from both sides on Monday and hasn’t yet made a final ruling.
Bonjean is also seeking to use six internal affairs investigations to show the jury Sydnor has a pattern of using force against intoxicated casino patrons and later minimizing his behavior by claiming it was unintentional or accidental.
“What ends up happening, almost invariably, is that Sydnor becomes provocative and taunts — which we see over and over again — and that escalates into a use of force that’s avoidable and excessive,” Bonjean said in court.
For full story visit: https://www.app.com/story/news/investigations/watchdog/shield/2018/04/11/franco-sydnor-atlantic-city-cop-criminal-history/502353002/
Atlantic City Police Officer Franco Sydnor is being sued for excessive force for allegedly beating a Bally’s Casino patron in the head with a baton. The federal trial is expected to start in May. Court records