Police Official Charged After a Drunken Commute Ends in a Crash
The girlfriend of a deputy inspector with the New York Police Department drunkenly rear-ended a cab while the pair drove in the officer’s police car near Penn Station, Manhattan prosecutors say. Then, according to an indictment, the couple fled, switched places so the inspector was behind the wheel, offered the cabdriver money and lied to a police captain who had been called to the scene.
And the deputy inspector, prosecutors say, did it all on his way to work.
The inspector, Paul Zangrilli, 44, was charged this week in Manhattan Criminal Court alongside the girlfriend, Nikole Rupple, 35, in a 12-count indictment that included charges of official misconduct, driving while intoxicated, falsifying business records and lying to a public authority.
In addition to the charges stemming from the Aug. 16, 2022, accident, prosecutors said that once Inspector Zangrilli arrived for his night shift at the Fifth Precinct in Chinatown, he called the owner of the bar where he and Ms. Rupple had been drinking — American Whiskey — and asked him to delete surveillance video of their visit. The inspector is also charged with a felony count of tampering with evidence.
The escapade “was incredibly dangerous,” Alvin L. Bragg, Manhattan’s district attorney, said in a statement Thursday.“We will continue to hold public servants accountable when they violate the public trust.”
Inspector Zangrilli, who has been suspended without pay, and Ms. Rupple have pleaded not guilty and been released on their own recognizance. Inspector Zangrilli’s lawyer, Eric P. Franz, said his client denied the charges. “He is a well-respected inspector who has been waiting two years to address these allegations and clear his good name,” Mr. Franz said.
Ms. Rupple’s lawyer, Scott E. Leemon, declined to comment.
The charges stem from events that began on a late summer evening when Inspector Zangrilli, then the commanding officer of the Fifth Precinct, drove with Ms. Rupple to a bar near Penn Station.