To secure a DWI arrest and prosecution of a local motorist named Kevin Goodman, Detective Sherman Payami fabricated a wide variety of evidence that he claimed would support the establishment of probable cause in criminal court. For his misconduct, Detective Payami became the subject of an internal investigation inside the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office, which decided to make Giglio disclosures on all of Payami’s open cases in light of the credibility-damage that emerged from the ashes of the Goodman-prosecution. And Payami became the target of a damning review from the criminal court judge, too, who attributed Mr. Goodman’s arrest to the type of “dishonesty” that “doesn’t [come to light] very often.”
The detective’s fabrications ranged from the basis for stopping Mr. Goodman, to Mr. Goodman’s appearance upon being stopped, to Mr. Goodman’s performance on roadside tests—all of which came together to form a twenty-month odyssey in criminal court before the fabrications in his notes, records and testimony came to light through video evidence that conclusively demonstrated the dramatic falsity of the officer’s reports and led to the dismissal of all charges.
Led by Bruce Barket and Alexander Klein, the firm brought civil rights claims on Mr. Goodman’s behalf in federal court, where it fought for justice on his behalf for nearly half a decade. During that time, BEKAL won a series of critical sets of motion practice—including records it obtained from Nassau County over the County’s staunch objection, and which ultimately proved critical in highlighting the extent of the officer’s misconduct; and summary judgment practice, where BEKAL defeated two sets of motions—one by Payami and one by Nassau County—which had attempted to obtain dismissal of the case before trial.
Barket and Klein took the case to trial in the Eastern District of New York against two accomplished defense firms. Over the course of three days, however, BEKAL’s performance proved so devastating to the defense that the County agreed to settle the case for $360,000 favorably to Mr. Goodman mid-trial.
