NYPD disciplinary judge doesn't buy cop's claim that caught-on-video kick to suspect's head was a 'tap'

Rocco Parascandola, New York Daily News on Oct 27, 2026

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NEW YORK — An NYPD lieutenant has been docked 20 days’ pay for kicking a motorist in the head following a 100 mph car chase in Manhattan — even though the cop at his disciplinary trial described the kick as a “tap,” court papers reveal.

Lt. Nikolaos Stefopoulos claimed he used “literally almost no force” against the suspect, Brian Marchany, as two other officers were trying to handcuff him during the 2024 arrest. A bystander captured the kick on video and posted it on X.

“It was like to stop him and kind of, ‘Hey, comply,’ kind of like, you know, tap some sense into him, so to speak,” Stefopoulos testified at his disciplinary trial at One Police Plaza in March. “But it was more of a compliance kick.”

“It had nothing to do with injuring him.”

An NYPD administrative law judge, Anne Stone, didn’t buy Stefopoulos’ explanation, calling it “a self-serving attempt to justify his misconduct.”

She also said that even if Stefopoulos thought Marchany was armed, as he also testified, “he is an experienced officer, who was the supervisor on scene, and should have recognized that there were no circumstances present which warranted kicking [Marchany] in the head.”

Stone recommended that Stefopoulos be docked 20 days’ pay. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch approved the penalty in August. A summary of the case was recently posted on the NYPD’s website.

The incident happened at 1:10 a.m. on Feb. 15, 2024, when Marchany, then 25, sped down the FDR Drive in his Toyota Camry with his girlfriend past an unmarked police car near East 59th Street.

Stefopoulos, driving with a sergeant and a detective — all members of the citywide Community Response Team — gave chase, with Stefopoulos topping out at 107 miles per hour at one point, according to the summary.

Marchany and Stefopoulos headed down the East Side, through the Battery Park Underpass, then up the West Side, ending when Marchany crashed into a parked car at Church St. and Park Place.

The lieutenant testified that when he pulled his gun and tried to get Marchany to exit his car, the suspect reached for his waistband. He also testified that he punched Marchany in the chest because the suspect came at him when he exited the Camry.

Stone, instead, believed Sgt. David Veloz, who testified that, based on a review of the X video, the police body-worn camera footage and a stationary NYPD camera, Marchany was trying to surrender and that the punch was excessive.

Stone also wrote in the summary that Veloz felt the same way about the kick because by then Marchany was on the ground and could not freely move his hands.

Marchany suffered a seizure while on the ground and vomited. He was arrested for drug possession and resisting arrest, among other charges, and his girlfriend, riding with him, was charged with drug possession. Both cases were later sealed.

Police at the time said Marchany may have had the seizure because he swallowed heroin, but his lawyer said there was no indication that was true.

Marchany shortly after the incident told the Daily News, “The video speaks for itself.”

“I have no recollection of what happened from the moment I stepped out of the car,” Marchany said. “I just remember waking up in the ICU with a breathing tube and a catheter.”

Stefopoulos, a 19-year veteran, did not respond to a request for comment.

As a member of the CRT, he had at the time of the incident been featured at least seven times on then-Chief of Patrol John Chell’s X page for his work getting guns off the streets.

Stefopoulos has made 144 felony arrests and 272 misdemeanor arrests in his career, according to records, but none since that incident.

He has been a named defendant in six lawsuits filed between 2014 and 2018, with settlements totaling $198,001. The biggest settlement was for $125,000 paid to a Staten Island man who said Stefopoulos, then in narcotics, and other cops working with him, falsely arrested him in retaliation for a complaint he had previously filed in which he accused other officers of pulling him from his car and threatening him.

Stefopoulos has also been the subject of 31 civilian complaints accusing him of 109 acts of misconduct.

Of that 109, 20 allegations have been substantiated, including two for excessive force, three for an improper frisk, and three for body-worn camera violations. He was docked several days’ pay for each of more than a dozen of the substantiated allegations, records show.

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