New York
Former N.Y.P.D. Officer Christian Zapata Is Convicted of Punching a Civilian 13 Times
A former New York City police officer was convicted on Wednesday of attempted assault for punching a man 13 times after the man’s girlfriend called 911 seeking help with her distraught son.
The former officer, Christian Zapata, 37, was sentenced in the nonjury trial to time served, meaning he will not spend time behind bars. He was acquitted of a more serious charge, third-degree assault, which could have carried up to a year in jail.
Justice Curtis Farber said Manhattan prosecutors chose not to call the victim, Jerome Collins, as a witness and a review of medical records failed to show that he had suffered injuries.
“This was a single, abhorrent act by Mr. Zapata,” Judge Farber said during the sentencing hearing in Manhattan Supreme Court, according to court transcripts. “He otherwise led an unblemished career as a New York City police officer and police sergeant.”
Mr. Zapata, who resigned from the department on Jan. 3, was a sergeant on Dec. 7, 2022, when he and other officers responded to a Harlem apartment after a mother called for help because she was unable to calm her 15-year-old son, who is autistic.
When the officers came inside, Ms. Turner’s boyfriend, Mr. Collins, asked them to put on masks, according to court documents and video footage captured by the officers’ body cameras. The police officers refused and the exchange escalated into a confrontation that ended with Mr. Zapata grabbing Mr. Collins and punching him as another officer held down his hands. The punching only stopped after another officer came between the two men.
Mr. Collins was then placed in handcuffs and taken into the hallway as his 8-year-old son began weeping, according to the video footage.
“Daddy is all right,” Mr. Collins told the boy.
“Are you going to come back?” the boy asked.
“Yes, what did Daddy tell you? He always comes back,” Mr. Collins replied before officers dragged him away.
Mr. Zapata told the boy, who was still crying, “I’m sorry, young man. I’m sorry you had to see that.”
Mr. Collins, who at the time worked as a home health aide, spent 24 hours in detention and was charged with resisting arrest and obstruction of justice. Both charges were dismissed. He was treated for his injuries and did not need to be hospitalized.
Mr. Zapata retired before the department could discipline him, the police said. He was demoted to the rank of officer following the assault.
Prosecutors asked Judge Farber to sentence Mr. Zapata to 60 days in jail, saying he had “brutally assaulted Mr. Jerome Collins without justification.” Even after being suspended and demoted, he “has been unwilling to admit that what he did that day was wrong,” said Tavish DeAtley, an assistant district attorney.
Mr. DeAtley said that prosecutors had called as witnesses two officers who were with Mr. Zapata that day and said they “bravely testified about their supervisor’s egregious conduct.”
Mr. Zapata’s lawyer, Andrew Quinn, did not respond to messages for comment on Wednesday afternoon.
During the sentencing hearing, Mr. Quinn said Mr. Zapata had “momentarily lost control” and “threw more punches than was necessary.”
“He was doing his job to the best of his ability,” Mr. Quinn said. “The bottom line is, everybody went home safe, and the young man got the help he needed. I consider that a job well done.”
Mr. Zapata declined to speak before he was sentenced, but nodded along as his lawyer spoke, according to court transcripts. Mr. Quinn said that before that day, Mr. Zapata had made more than 400 arrests and never been the subject of a complaint from the public.
Judge Farber declined to impose the 60-day sentence, saying that Mr. Zapata “was already, tremendously, punished by losing his position as a sergeant, being demoted and ultimately forfeiting his job and career as a police officer, and benefits that flowed from there.”
Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, said in a statement that “the use of unlawful force cannot be permitted.”
“Holding members of law enforcement accountable when they break the law is essential for public safety and upholding the public’s trust,” he said.
Four years ago, Andrew M. Cuomo resigned as governor of New York under a cloud of multiple sexual harassment accusations. He seemed chagrined, embarrassed for acting “in a way that made people feel uncomfortable.”
But as he prepared to make his political return, his tone changed. He said he had been driven out of office by a political hit job. He sued the state attorney general and moved to sue one of his accusers. And he began to portray himself as the victim. “That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” he told The Daily Beast recently.
Now, as he runs for mayor of New York City, Mr. Cuomo is treating the scandal as ancient history, even as some of the complaints are still being contested in court.
Here is a look at all of the known sexual harassment allegations, where they stand and what Mr. Cuomo has said about them. (Some of the accusers’ names were shielded, in part or whole, by state investigators in their reports.)
2019-2021
Cuomo’s third term as governor
Brittany Commisso
Executive assistant, governor’s office
Ms. Commisso said Mr. Cuomo grabbed her buttocks; reached under her blouse and fondled her breast; held her in close, intimate hugs; and asked her about her relationship with her husband, including whether she had ever “fooled around” or had sex with anyone else. She recalled his saying something to the effect of “if you were single, the things I would do to you,” and said he once complimented her on showing “some leg.” During their hugs, she said she would try to lean away from his pelvic area, because she “didn’t want anything to do with whatever he was trying to do at that moment.”
Charlotte Bennett
Executive assistant, governor’s office
Ms. Bennett, who was 25 at the time, said the governor asked if she had been with older men and if she practiced monogamy, and told her he was lonely and would date someone as young as 22. Mr. Cuomo, she testified, also told her he “wanted to be touched,” and, upon learning that she planned to get a tattoo, advised her to get it on her buttocks. She said she felt as though Mr. Cuomo was grooming her. In a conversation about a speech Ms. Bennett was about to give at her alma mater about sexual assault, she recalled his pointing at her and intoning, “You were raped, you were raped, you were raped and abused and assaulted.” It was “something out of a horror movie,” she texted a colleague that day. “It was like he was testing me.”
State Entity Employee #1
Anonymous state employee
While posing for a photo at a work event in September 2019, the governor “tapped the area” between the employee’s buttocks and thigh, she told investigators, and then moved his fingers upward to “kind of grab that area.” “I felt deflated and I felt disrespected and I felt much, like, smaller and almost younger than I actually am,” she said. She said she had reported the governor’s conduct to investigators to support the women who had come forward with “more extreme” stories and to help establish that they were part of a pattern. “If I could do that, I felt that it was my responsibility to do that,” she said.
Alyssa McGrath
Executive assistant in the governor’s office
Ms. McGrath said she was taking dictation from the governor in 2019 when she noticed the governor had stopped talking. She said she looked up and saw him staring down her shirt. The governor then asked what was on her necklace, whose pendant was hanging between her breasts and her shirt. She said it was a Virgin Mary and an Italian horn. The governor would also ask questions that made her uncomfortable, she said, including about her divorce and whether, if Ms. Commisso were to cheat on her husband, she would tell anyone.
State Entity Employee #2
Director at State Department of Health
This state employee, a doctor, performed a televised Covid test on the governor at a March 2020 news conference. Beforehand, he asked her not to put the swab in “so deep that you hit my brain.” She said she would be “gentle but accurate.” “Gentle but accurate,” he responded. “I’ve heard that before.” She found his demeanor flirtatious and understood his statement to have sexual undertones. At the news conference, when the doctor appeared in personal protective equipment, the governor said, “You make that gown look good.” The woman told investigators that she “felt that in my professional standing I should share these facts, whatever they are, in order to support if there are any other women. I can’t say there are or not, who are saying they have been put in an uncomfortable position, or if there is any sexual harassment, that you have the facts that you might need.”
Anna Ruch
Guest at wedding of a senior aide to Mr. Cuomo
At the wedding of an aide, the governor approached Ms. Ruch, shook her hand, and then put his hand on her bare back, she told investigators. She said she grabbed his wrist to move it, at which point the governor said, “Wow, you’re aggressive,” and cupped her face in his hands. “Can I kiss you?” he asked. She turned her head, she said, and he kissed her cheek. (Ms. Ruch was hired by the New York Times photo department in 2022.)
2015-2019
Cuomo’s second term as governor
Trooper #1
Member of Cuomo’s protective detail
The trooper said she first remembered the governor touching her inappropriately in an elevator going up to his Midtown Manhattan office, where he stood behind her, placed his finger on her neck, and then ran it slowly down her back, touching her bra clasp.“Hey, you,” she recalled him saying. In a separate incident, she recalled him running his palm across her stomach, “between my chest and my privates,” while she was holding a door open for him, an act that made her feel “completely violated.” A witness corroborated the account of Mr. Cuomo touching the trooper’s stomach.
The trooper said he would also say sexually suggestive and sexist things, and told her to keep their conversations private. Among other things, he requested she help him find a girlfriend who could “handle pain,” and he asked why she did not wear a dress, she said.
Lindsey Boylan
Chief of staff at Empire State Development and then deputy secretary for economic development and special adviser to the governor
Mr. Cuomo paid so much attention to Ms. Boylan that her supervisor concluded the governor had a “crush” on her, both she and her boss testified. Her boss asked if Ms. Boylan needed help managing the situation. She said no. Mr. Cuomo would also compare her to an ex-girlfriend, even allegedly calling Ms. Boylan by that ex-girlfriend’s name. And, she said, he would touch her legs, waist and back.
On an airplane, Ms. Boylan recalled Mr. Cuomo suggesting, seemingly in jest, that they play strip poker. Ms. Boylan’s boss at first claimed not to remember those remarks. After Ms. Boylan sent her boss what he described as a “disparaging” message that he found “threatening,” he corroborated her account. “I’ve been sexually harassed throughout my career,” she told investigators, “but not in a way where the whole environment was set up to feed the predator.”
Virginia Limmiatis
Employee, National Grid
Ms. Limmiatis said she had been waiting to meet the governor at a 2017 event when Mr. Cuomo approached her and pressed his fingers into her chest, pausing atop each letter of the energy company’s name that adorned her shirt. Then he leaned in so his cheek touched hers and, in her telling, shared his cover story: He would just say there had been a bug on her shirt. Then, she said, he brushed the pretend bug from the area between her shoulder and breast and walked away. After seeing Mr. Cuomo say during a news conference on March 3, 2021, that he had “never touched anyone inappropriately,” she felt compelled to come forward. “I am a cancer survivor,” Ms. Limmiatis told investigators. “I know an oppressive and destructive force when I see it.”
Kaitlin
Aide in the governor’s office
Kaitlin met Mr. Cuomo at a fund-raiser that her employer, a lobbying firm, was hosting at the Friars Club. When she introduced herself, he pulled her into a dance pose and told her he was going to have her work for the state. Though she told investigators she had never shared her contact information with him or his staff, nine days later she received a voicemail message inviting her to interview for a job in his office, at his behest. It turned out that two of Mr. Cuomo’s aides had been told to find Kaitlin’s contact information. Her colleagues urged her to accept the job, and she did. “I knew that I was being hired because of what I looked like,” she told investigators. The governor paid undue attention to her physical appearance and would comment on her clothes and makeup, she said.
Stephanie Miner
Former mayor of Syracuse
In a new book, Ms. Miner recounted Mr. Cuomo’s kissing her at public events against her will, actions she believed were an expression of his will to dominate. “His kissing me was about power,” she wrote in “Madam Mayor: Love and Loss in an American City.” She went on: “I never viewed it as sexual. We were gladiators in a public ring and that’s how he showed he was boss.”
2011-2015
Cuomo’s first term as governor
Ana Liss
Aide in governor’s office
Mr. Cuomo would kiss her cheek and would almost always address her as “sweetheart” or “darling,” Ms. Liss said. He spoke to her, she said, like she was “a little girl, almost.” She said she considered Mr. Cuomo’s behavior improper, but not sexual harassment. (A judge, apparently referring to Ms. Liss, said a complainant’s legal conclusion on that matter was “irrelevant.”) Ms. Liss said she had spoken up because “the other young women that had come forward with more egregious allegations weren’t being believed, and I believed them, and I wanted to share an account that was less egregious and spoke to the broader culture that allowed for the things that happened to them to happen to them.”
1997-2001
Cuomo’s tenure as HUD secretary
Karen Hinton
Consultant to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
While Ms. Hinton was working as a consultant for the Housing Department under Mr. Cuomo, he held her in a “very long, too long, too tight, too intimate” hug, she told The Washington Post. She told WNYC that Mr. Cuomo was “aroused” during the embrace. Years after the encounter, Ms. Hinton worked for Mr. Cuomo’s antagonist, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City.
Estimated spending on
broadcast ads that have aired
$1.1 million
$4.3 million
The Democrats running for mayor in New York City and a super PAC supporting Andrew M. Cuomo are spending millions to reach potential voters, with much of the spending going toward commercials on broadcast television. A New York Times analysis of the broadcast ads that have aired so far, using data from AdImpact, explored the major themes highlighted by the candidates: crime and safety, President Trump, affordable housing and corruption.
Among the ads aired,
seven mention crime and safety
3 ads
Mr. Cuomo, the former governor, has been framing himself as a law-and-order candidate who will crack down on crime and improve public safety. Ads run by Fix the City, the super PAC backing Mr. Cuomo, have depicted New York as a city in chaos. One of its ads opens with images of police sirens, caution tape and subway riders fleeing a smoke-filled train.
“Crime is rampant,” says a voiceover in another pro-Cuomo ad, also paid for by Fix the City. That ad also references Mr. Cuomo’s “five-borough crime and affordability plan,” which would add “5,000 more cops” to the streets.
Other candidates took a subtler approach. Scott Stringer, a former city comptroller, said in his only broadcast ad to air so far that he would “put a cop on every train” and “hire more mental health workers.” An ad for Brad Lander, the current city comptroller, tied the idea of safety to Mr. Lander’s plan to “end street homelessness for the mentally ill.” An ad for Zohran Mamdani, the state assemblyman, simply said he would make New York a “safer city.”
Among the ads aired,
five mention President Trump
2 ads
Taking jabs at Mr. Trump and his administration could almost be considered a requirement for candidates running in a Democratic primary in a city where former Vice President Kamala Harris won about 70 percent of votes in the 2024 presidential election. Still, some of the ads that mention the president are more direct than others.
An ad for Mr. Stringer was among the most explicit: “We deserve a mayor who can get our city back on track and keep this schmuck out of our business,” Mr. Stringer says over a clip of Mr. Trump dancing at a rally, adding that he will “tell Trump where to stick it.”
Mr. Lander drives a large forklift around a junkyard in his broadcast ad and places cars into a crushing machine. One of the cars has the words “Trump & Musk” in large black letters across the side.
Other candidates made only passing swipes at the president. Some of the ads supporting Mr. Cuomo mentioned that he took on Mr. Trump as governor and will again as mayor, and an ad for Mr. Mamdani said he would stand up to Mr. Trump. Mr. Myrie’s broadcast ad did not mention Mr. Trump.
All ads mention affordable housing
3 ads
Every broadcast ad reviewed in the analysis mentioned housing at least once. In one ad, Mr. Mamdani likened Mr. Cuomo to the current mayor, Eric Adams, whose housing policies have been similar to the former governor’s, and whose popularity declined after he was indicted on fraud and corruption charges in 2024. The Trump administration later dropped the charges.
“Cuomo is running for Adams’s second term,” Mr. Mamdani said in the ad, adding that he will “take on bad landlords and greedy corporations.”
Mr. Adams and Mr. Cuomo are both moderates who have many of the same donors, including powerful real estate leaders, and both have supported housing policies that are in stark contrast to Mr. Mamdani’s. The mayor and former governor both oppose freezing increases for rent-stabilized apartments, for example, while one of Mr. Mamdani’s ads is devoted solely to his plan to freeze rent prices.
In ads for other candidates, housing is mentioned only briefly. An ad by Fix the City for Mr. Cuomo said he will “cut red tape for affordable housing and build 500,000 new units.” In Mr. Stringer’s ad, he said he will “turn vacant lots into affordable apartments.” Mr. Myrie’s ad says he has “the boldest plan to build affordable housing.”
Among the ads aired,
three mention corruption
0 ads
Several of the candidates mentioned corruption in their ads. In Mr. Lander’s ad, a second car is brought out to be crushed, this one symbolizing “corruption,” specifically as it relates to Mr. Cuomo.
“Andrew Cuomo spent $60 million of your money to defend himself in court. That’s corrupt,” a voiceover says as the car is brought to the crushing machine. “But Brad Lander fights corruption.”
In the ad in which Mr. Mamdani compares Mr. Cuomo to Mr. Adams, the candidate paints the former governor and mayor as the corrupt establishment, responsible for making the city unaffordable.
“Working people are being pushed out of the city they built, and it’s because corrupt politicians like Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo have sold us out to billionaires and corporations, rigging the economy against us,” Mr. Mamdani says over a series of images that combine Mr. Cuomo’s face and quotes about the former governor from news articles.
Mr. Stringer defines corruption less precisely, mentioning that he “fought corruption” as comptroller. The three pro-Cuomo broadcast ads by Fix the City did not mention corruption, nor did the ad for Mr. Myrie.
Total spending on advertising,
including future broadcast spots
| Total spent | Broadcast share | |
|---|---|---|
|
Fix the City (pro-Cuomo super PAC) |
$8.1 million | 91% |
 Mamdani |
$3.0 million | 41% |
 Lander |
$2.3 million | 72% |
 Stringer |
$1.9 million | 83% |
 Myrie |
$1.7 million | 27% |
Spending on ads that have already aired on broadcast television, which this analysis focused on, is one slice of candidates’ overall ad spending. They have also purchased broadcast spots to air more ads in the future, as well as ads on other platforms like streaming television, satellite and internet. Broadcast was, however, a major focus for the candidates.
Fix the City, the pro-Cuomo super PAC, has spent the most on advertising by far, with 91 percent of its spending devoted to commercials on broadcast networks. (Mr. Cuomo’s campaign has not yet aired any of its own ads on broadcast television, according to AdImpact.)
By contrast, the campaign for Mr. Mamdani, which has become known for its savvy approach to social media, has spent just 41 percent of its advertising budget on broadcast, according to the AdImpact data. (Mr. Mamdani’s campaign has, however, spent more on broadcast than any other individual platform.)
One of the leading Democrats in the mayor’s race, Adrienne Adams, the speaker of the New York City Council, has not yet aired an ad on broadcast television. The candidate struggled to raise funds early in her campaign, but recently got an infusion of $2 million from the city’s fund-matching program, which the campaign said it would use for an aggressive ad blitz in the coming weeks before the June 24 primary.
Over the course of one week, some of the richest people in the world descended on New York’s auction houses to purchase over $1 billion of art. It might have played out a little differently than you would have expected.
Can you guess which of these works sold for more?
Note: Listed sale prices include auction fees.
Image credits: “Untitled,” via Phillips; “Baby Boom,” via Christie’s Images LTD; “Hazy Sun,” With permission of the Renate, Hans & Maria Hofmann Trust/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; via Christie’s Images LTD; “Petit Matin,” via Christie’s Images LTD; “Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio,” Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SIAE, Rome; via Sotheby’s; “Baroque Egg with Bow (Orange/Magenta),” via Sotheby’s; “The Last Supper,” The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; via Christie’s Images LTD; “Campbell’s Soup I,” The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; via Christie’s Images LTD; “Miss January,” via Christie’s Images LTD; “Fingermalerei – Akt,” via Sotheby’s; “Grande tête mince (Grande tête de Diego),” Succession Alberto Giacometti/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY; via Sotheby’s; “Tête au long cou,” Succession Alberto Giacometti/ARS, NY/Photos: ADAGP Images/Paris 2025; via Christie’s Images LTD; “Revelacion,” Remedios Varo, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VEGAP, Madrid; via Christie’s Images LTD; “Le jardin nocturne,” Foundation Paul Delvaux, Sint-Idesbald – ARS/SABAM Belgium; via Christie’s Images LTD.
Produced by Daniel Simmons-Ritchie.
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