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from www.lohud.com – A dominatrix who says a Greenburgh police officer demanded kinky sex acts in the wake of her arrest on drug charges can proceed to trial with her lawsuit, a federal judge has ruled.
Gina Pane, 36, sued Officer Erik Ward, the town of Greenburgh, former Chief John Kapica, and several other officers in 2007, claiming that her arrest and the media frenzy that followed cost her a career on Wall Street.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa Margaret Smith ruled this week that Pane’s claims against Ward — who lost his job in 2007 as a result of department charges stemming from the incident with Pane — police Sgt. Robert Gramaglia and the town can continue. But Kapica and several other officers won their motion to be removed from the lawsuit.
Pane’s lawyer, Ravi Batra, said the legal decision was nearly five years in the making.
“It would have been easier to climb Mount Everest than to reach this milepost,” he said Friday.
Ward’s lawyer, Andrew Quinn, declined to comment on the case, citing ongoing litigation. The lawyer for the town did not return calls for comment.
Pane was arrested Jan. 21, 2006, in the parking lot of the Greenburgh Multiplex and charged with driving while impaired by drugs and possession of marijuana. She claims officers harassed her at headquarters when they found out she worked as a dominatrix.
Pane claims Ward had her meet him the day after her arrest, ostensibly to recruit her as an informant. She said they drove to a nature preserve in Greenwich, Conn. There, she claims, they got out of the car and she defecated as Ward masturbated.
Ward has denied the accusations. He says they never got out of the car and his only mistake was putting himself in a siutuation where he could be falsely accused.
Pane filed a complaint against Ward later that week. He was eventually cleared of a misdemeanor charge of official misconduct but was fired in 2007 after the Town Board ruled he violated procedures for dealing with informants and brought discredit on the department.
Pane filed her $5 million suit in April 2007, two months after she settled the marijuana charge and Ward was fired.
A federal jury will decide whether Ward intentionally inflicted emotional distress on her, and false arrest and imprisonment claims against Gramaglia.