Richard Emery should already be gone — not because the Civilian Complaint Review Board chief called cops “pigs,” but because of his longtime anti-police record and his blatant conflict of interest.
A conflict in which his law firm continues to sue police officers being investigated by the agency he chairs.
Emery stepped in it by charging police unions demanding his removal were “squealing like a stuck pig.”
Cops were understandably outraged by Emery’s invoking the notorious anti-cop insult. Gov. Cuomo called on him to either apologize or resign for a remark “obnoxious” and “insulting to all police.” Even Mayor de Blasio called it “very insensitive.”
Now Emery’s trying to pseudo-apologize, weaseling about “to the extent that anyone was offended by my poor choice of words” and insisting he’d “never use the word ‘pig’ to refer to police officers.”
So what? The problem isn’t his Freudian slip, but his shocking combination of jobs.
This is the same Richard Emery who’s made a handsome living suing the city and whose law firm boasts that it “has successfully represented hundreds of clients in police misconduct cases.”
And the firm has kept on filing anti-cop suits, collecting hundreds of thousands in settlements after Emery’s appointment.
Sure, the Conflicts of Interest Board OK’d this cozy arrangement — as long as Emery recuses himself from those cases.
But that just goes to show what a rubber-stamp the conflicts board has become.
The CCRB chief has influence even when he’s officially uninvolved. Not least, Emery oversees studies and reports that inevitably influence all cases of alleged misconduct.
Plus, as Post columnist Bob McManus recently wrote, Emery’s the marquee name on the law firm’s shingle — the one that brings in money-hungry plaintiffs.
That makes what he does barely different from the kind of “rainmaking” behavior that’s sending Sheldon Silver to prison.
Richard Emery needs to go — not for his words, but for far more serious outrages.