Seeking to Sue the NYPD
Noted Author Richard Kostelanetz Writes . . .

“On 9 May 2024, five days before my 84^th birthday, twelve NYPD raided my studio/home in Queens, NY, looking initially for printed child pornography, following the receipt of a few mostly innocuous images from a book written by someone else that I tried to publish through Amazon KDP. Finding nothing in my collection of 25,000 books, they then filched all my MAC computers and backups — my lifework as a writer & artist — that I neglected to store externally, which the lead detective promised to return, personally. On 14 May, [the detective] who led the raid told a criminal lawyer informally representing me that I was not a person-of-interest and repeated that she would personally return everything to me. After some back and forth since mid-July, with another informal lawyer to whom the officer insisted upon speaking, but who has since evaporated on me, the NYPD still has invaluable material ten months later, destroying my professional career. After evading my lawyer, the officer confessed to me on 12 March 2025 that they were keeping my MACs because they couldn’t crack them without knowing the passwords, which I’d rather not give them. (I may not know some of them, because they are in a file on the master computer.) In short, the NYPD can’t prove my possession of any porn. I’d like to sue them for the return of my work and professional damages incurred.”

He is looking for an attorney to press his case.