Louis N. Scarcella (, born ) is a retired detective from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) who initially came to prominence during the "crack epidemic" of the 1980s and 1990s, earning frequent commendations before many convictions resulting from his investigations were overturned during his retirement. As a member of the Brooklyn North Homicide Squad, he and his longtime partner Stephen Chmil built a reputation for obtaining convictions in difficult cases. Since 2013, Scarcella has received extensive and sustained publicity for multiple allegations of investigative misconduct that resulted in false testimony against crime suspects, meaning that innocent parties could have served long prison terms and guilty individuals could have gone free because of wrongful procedures.
As of September 2022, at least 20 people had their convictions vacated in Scarcella's homicide cases, after more than 400 combined years of imprisonment, as the Kings County District Attorney's Office (Brooklyn DA) continued to review many of the detective's estimated 200 homicide investigations. Prosecutors and judges have explicitly cited evidence of his improper conduct, in criminal cases involving at least 12 convicted defendants, and legal settlements have surpassed $100 million. Nevertheless, Scarcella has consistently denied wrongdoing, and the statute of limitations has protected him from possible legal consequences.
Biography and family
Louis Scarcella grew up in an Italian-American family living in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. His father, Domenick, was an NYPD homicide detective in Manhattan. Scarcella studied at Midwood High School, then served for three years in the US Navy during the Vietnam War. Upon returning to New York City, he entered the police academy, graduating in 1973. His younger brother, Michael, also joined the NYPD, serving until his death by suicide in 2014. Louis transferred into the newly created Brooklyn North Homicide Squad in 1987, and retired in 1999. His daughter, Jacqueline Scarcella, became a prosecutor in the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office. His uncle, Nicholas "Nicky Black" Grancio, was the victim of a Brooklyn homicide that police attributed to a leadership struggle within the Colombo crime family. Scarcella is a longtime resident of Great Kills, Staten Island, and a former president of the Coney Island Polar Bear Club for winter swimming.
Allegations of investigative misconduct
Under the spotlight of a high-profile New York Times investigation that went on to win a George Polk Award for Justice Reporting, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes in 2013 reopened the cases of 56 people arrested by Scarcella. At least another five cases of his partner Chmil were deemed "probably wrongful" by the nonprofit Exoneration Initiative of the Innocence Network, citing "the same pattern of cajoled and inconsistent witnesses". The Times found that at least six murder cases relied on the same crack-addicted witness, at least five disputed confessions started with the same wording frequently used in Scarcella's own storytelling, and at least six disputed confessions lacked the standard recordings or interview notes for supporting documentation. In one of several front-page articles that year, the Times warned how Scarcella's flawed work "raises the prospect that innocent people may be serving life sentences for crimes they did not commit, or that guilty people whose cases were compromised could go free."
As of May 2018, the New York Daily News calculated that Scarcella's homicide cases had already resulted in overturned convictions for at least 13 individuals with a combined 245 years in prison, and that the city and state had already paid more than $53 million in legal settlements because of his "shady investigations involving tainted evidence, misleading testimony or forced confessions". As of December 2022, itemized in a section below, at least 20 convictions have been vacated after more than 400 years of imprisonment, and the settlements have surpassed $100 million. Three of his overturned convictions were featured in the documentary series Brooklyn North: Guilty Until Proven Innocent, a best-selling podcast in 2020.