A cop-turned-lawyer who built his practice on discrimination suits against the NYPD was jailed Tuesday for stiffing a former employee out of a discrimination award she had won against him.
Eric Sanders was arrested at his Melville, LI, home after a federal bankruptcy judge had enough of his missed court dates and failure to make mandated payments, sources said.
Sanders was found liable for retaliating against and then firing Mary Rocco in 2005 because she was pregnant, court papers show.
“The terrible irony here is that Sanders holds himself out publicly as a champion of civil rights and yet was found liable for violating my client’s civil rights and has refused to honor the judgment against him,” said Rocco’s attorney, Tracey Bernstein.
The state Division of Human Rights found that Sanders and his partner wrongfully discriminated against Rocco. The panel awarded her $175,000 in 2010.
An appellate court upheld the ruling in 2011 — but Rocco still hasn’t seen a nickel, her attorney said.
“This has really done a lot of damage to Ms. Rocco,” Bernstein said, adding that she’s the wife of a retired NYPD detective.
“She has three kids and her career has never fully recovered,” he said. Instead of honoring his legal obligations, [Sanders] tried to divert from the real issues by calling us racists.”
After Sanders boasted to a newspaper that he had scored a $500,000 settlement in another case, for a former Hempstead, LI, cop, Bernstein moved to seize Sanders’ portion of the settlement.
So Sanders filed for bankruptcy, claiming that despite a $900-a-month NYPD pension and $10,000 monthly law-firm income, he was unable to pay Rocco.
US Bankruptcy Judge Dorothy Eisenberg ordered that Sanders remain jailed on a civil-contempt charge until he pays back the $181,666 with interest still owed to Rocco.
Sanders is presently representing the family of Miriam Carey, the Connecticut woman shot dead by lawmen in Washington, DC, after she tried to ram the White House gates and then led them on a wild chase through the nation’s capital.