Ex-NJ Cop Sues City Over Claims Of Reverse Racism Following Excessive Force Indictment

Spencer Finch also has another case that has yet to go to trial.

A former Paterson, New Jersey, police officer has filed a major lawsuit against the city and local officials, arguing he was wrongfully fired over excessive-force charges he was later acquitted of, while another case against him is still pending.

Spencer Finch, 44, filed a federal lawsuit on Dec. 22 against the City of Paterson, Mayor Andre Sayegh, the police department, the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office, and several current and former law enforcement officials, NJ.com reports.

In the complaint, Finch claims reverse discrimination, civil rights violations, and malicious prosecution, arguing he never should have been charged after being indicted and later acquitted on excessive-force counts, only to be indicted again on the aforementioned separate charges.

The lawsuit stems from Finch’s 2021 criminal case, the first in Paterson built largely on police body-camera footage. Video showed Finch, a white officer, repeatedly hitting a Black man, Brandon Cosby, with a flashlight in an apartment hallway and kneeing him in the face while he was handcuffed.

Prosecutors said Finch used excessive force after responding to a domestic dispute. Finch claimed Cosby was trying to break down his ex-girlfriend’s door, resisted arrest, and attacked him. Finch added that his partner failed to help.

Finch was fired from the Paterson Police Department later that year by the mayor, even though a jury acquitted him of related charges in December 2023. He still faces a separate case tied to a 2018 incident in which prosecutors say he used excessive force during a robbery investigation at a deli. Finch was indicted on official misconduct in January 2023. That case has not yet gone to trial.

Now, Finch is suing on claims that prosecutors misused New Jersey’s Bail Reform Act to keep him jailed for a week. He also accuses Sayegh of politicizing the case, which violated his civil rights, during the 2022 mayoral race. The lawsuit also calls out former Paterson police Lt. Louis Spagnola, now head of the department’s wellness unit, who allegedly worked with prosecutors to improperly sway the investigation and get officials to give false testimony at Finch’s first trial.

Finch alleges multiple constitutional violations, as well as malicious prosecution, false arrest, false imprisonment, abuse of process, destruction of evidence, civil conspiracy, and emotional distress. He seeks compensatory and punitive damages, lost wages and benefits, attorney’s fees, and damages for physical and psychological harm.