On Monday November 18, 2024, U.S. District Court judge, Analisa Torres granted final approval of ECBAWM’s class action settlement with the City of New York for $17.5 million for people who were forced to remove their religious head coverings for post-arrest photos. Under the terms of the settlement, more than 3,600 class members were eligible for payments of approximately $7,000 to $13,000. The settlement came nearly four years after the NYPD agreed to change its policy on religious head coverings and as the NYPD faced allegations it illegally retained mugshots as part of its facial recognition surveillance program.

The class is represented by O. Andrew F. Wilson, Mathew D. Brinckerhoff, Sana Mayat, Carlos Martinez-Montes, and Dymond Wells of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP (ECBAWM), a leading civil rights law firm, together with the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), a New York-based privacy and civil rights group.