Whistleblower former police officer Adrian Schoolcraft has been suing the City of New York and the NYPD since 2010. That was two years after he began secretly recording his bosses at the 81st Precinct as they illegally ordered their subordinates to manipulate crime data and meet certain quotas of arrests and stop-and-frisks. That staggering police misconduct was, of course, the subject of former Voice reporter Graham Rayman's "The NYPD Tapes," which detailed not just Schoolcraft's recordings, but the NYPD brass's reaction to them: on Halloween 2009, Schoolcraft was dragged from his house and involuntarily committed to Jamaica Hospital's psychiatric ward, where he remained for six days.

Schoolcraft sued the city in federal court, alleging that the hospitalization violated his civil rights and was nothing more than retaliation for his whistleblowing. In December, lawyers for the city subpoenaed Schoolcraft's tapes from Rayman , also asking for his notes, correspondence, emails and other reporting materials.

"I have no intention of cooperating," Rayman told the New York Times at the time, adding that submitting to such a subpoena would be "malpractice" for a journalist and would have "a chilling effect on what all journalists do."

In a ruling issued yesterday, U.S. Southern District Court Judge Ronald Sweet ruled that Rayman doesn't have to turn over much of his reporting material. Although the city will get access to some non-confidential materials, they won't get Schoolcraft's tapes.

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Two weeks ago, the Voice reported that the NYPD performed criminal records searches on whistle-blowing police officer Adrian Schoolcraft, his father, Larry, and his sister during the course of an administrative, non-criminal investigation into Schoolcraft's decision to leave work an hour early back in 2009. Now, we're a little closer to knowing whether the police violated state rules in performing those searches.

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Well, folks, last week, the Adrian Schoolcraft saga finally made it into the "ripped from the headlines" realm of Dick Wolf's television empire with an episode of Law and Order: SVU titled "Internal Affairs" that aired October 9.

This episode is a curious mash-up of three stories that have carried their share of headlines over the past three years: Schoolcraft, who blew the whistle on manipulation of crime statistics; the "rape cops" case involving Police Officers Mata and Moreno, who were acquitted of sexually assaulting an intoxicated young woman; and the initial cover-up of sexual assault in upper Manhattan.

Read on, then, for an recap of the episode, annotated for the Hollywood treatment vs. what really happened.

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Deputy Inspector Steven Mauriello, the main antagonist of whistleblower cop Adrian Schoolcraft, has broken a long public silence, and is fighting back against Schoolcraft's allegations in recently filed court papers, the Village Voice has learned.

Mauriello [pictured at far left with Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly] was Schoolcraft's commander in the 81st Precinct in Brooklyn. During the three years since Schoolcraft sued Mauriello, other police bosses and the city, Mauriello has remained largely quiet, expect to deny Schoolcraft's claims. Now, in a motion for counterclaims, his lawyer Walter Kretz accuses Schoolcraft of mounting a manipulative "revenge campaign" against Mauriello. (In the motion, Kretz cites a book by this reporter, titled "The NYPD Tapes," among other documents.)

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Patrolmen's Benevolent Association

Patrick Lynch

Patrick Lynch, the president of the New York City Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, says the solution to the stop and frisk controversy is not more oversight, but a commitment from the NYPD to eliminate quota pressure on police officers.

"The answer lies not in enforcing a judge's ruling or listening to an inspector general, but in repairing the damage that two major policy shifts have wrought where the policing rubber meets the road," Lynch writes in an op-ed published in today's New York Daily News. "Those two shifts: sharply reduced staffing and an increased emphasis on quotas."

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In the course of its investigation of whistleblower cop Adrian Schoolcraft, the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau not only ran his father's name through criminal databases, but his sister's name as well.

This revelatory tidbit emerged in federal court Tuesday during a hearing on Schoolcraft's lawsuit before U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet. It raises the question of whether it was proper for the NYPD to run the names of people through criminal databases when those people are merely potential witnesses and not under criminal investigation.

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Oral arguments in the increasingly bitter legal contest over whistleblower cop Adrian Schoolcraft's lawsuit against the city are scheduled for later today in federal court in Manhattan before U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet. The two sides are slated to haggle over an unusual confidentiality order that actually prevents Schoolcraft from seeing thousands of discovery documents in his own case.

Schoolcraft, of course, is the Brooklyn cop who secretly recorded his bosses in the 81st Precinct ordering manipulation of crime reports, stop-and-frisk quotas, and actions that probably led to civil rights violations. On Oct. 31, 2009, he was dragged out of his apartment by police and forcibly admitted to the Jamaica Hospital psych ward. He claims his civil rights were violated.

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C.S. Muncy

One of the law professors named to an advisory council in connection with the independent federal monitor of the police department's stop and frisk strategy says she laughed out loud when she saw today's New York Post story which dubbed the panel a bunch of "clowns."

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Palgrave MacMillan

In a puzzling move, the city has sent a subpoena to legendary NYPD whistleblower Frank Serpico for information on his interactions with, among other people, this reporter.

See Also: The NYPD Tapes: Inside Bed-Stuy's 81st Precinct
The NYPD Tapes Confirmed

The subpoena was sent as part of the city's defense of the lawsuit filed by Adrian Schoolcraft, who is suing the city over the infamous Oct. 31, 2009, incident in which police bosses ordered him dragged out of his apartment and placed in the Jamaica Hospital psych ward.

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Palgrave MacMillan

In 2009, a police officer reported misconduct in his Brooklyn precinct to NYPD investigators. Three weeks later, on Halloween night, a senior chief and other police bosses ordered him dragged out of his apartment and thrown into the Jamaica Hospital psychiatric ward. And then, it emerged, that he had everything on tape.

See Also: The NYPD Tapes: Inside Bed-Stuy's 81st Precinct
The NYPD Tapes Confirmed

Presented here, after the jump, is the prologue of Voice Staff Writer Graham Rayman's new book, "The NYPD Tapes," published today, August 6, by Palgrave MacMillan. The book takes a richer and deeper look into the story of Adrian Schoolcraft, the police officer who secretly recorded his bosses in Bed-Stuy's 81st Precinct. Schoolcraft was the central figure in the award-winning Village Voice series in 2010. His tapes provided hard evidence of downgrading of crimes, failure to take complaints, a quota system for stop and frisks, and orders that led to civil rights violation, and challenged the very foundation of the NYPD's vaunted Compstat strategy which was duplicated in police agencies around the country.

(Rayman is doing book talks tonight, August 6, at 7 at Book Court, 163 Court Street in Brooklyn, and tomorrow, August 7, at Barnes and Noble, 82nd Street and Broadway in Manhattan, also at 7 p.m.)

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