Federal Jury Clears Suffolk County Officers in $9M Excessive Force Case

A federal jury in Central Islip returned a defense verdict on March 15, clearing four Suffolk County police officers of excessive-force claims in a civil lawsuit that sought roughly $9 million in damages over the 2019 arrest of a Jericho woman who was battling stomach cancer at the time.

The case centered on the arrest of Maryann Ost Chernick, then 51, who had been taking prescription pain medication for stomach cancer when she backed her 2018 Lexus into a CVS pharmacy and drove away without stopping on Feb. 9, 2019. A bystander called police, who caught up with her heading west on the Long Island Expressway. What followed was a 13-mile pursuit that ended outside her gated Jericho community, where officers confronted her as she tried to punch in her garage keycode. The takedown left her face bloodied and fractured her right arm so badly it required eight hours of surgery, her legal camp said. She later pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of prescription medication.

The jury decided that retired officers Charles Tramontana and Jesus Faya and current officers Michael Sweet and Argand Reyes did not use excessive force against Chernick, who weighed 110 pounds and stood 5-foot-6. After a short deliberation, jurors could not agree that excessive force had been used and returned a verdict for the defense. Chernick died on Jan. 1, 2020, about a year after her arrest. Her widower, Ira Chernick, carried the lawsuit forward as a federal civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 on behalf of her estate.

The path to trial included a significant procedural hurdle in October 2024, when the Eastern District of New York denied summary judgment on the excessive-force claim while granting summary judgment for Suffolk County on the municipal-liability theories. That ruling left the disputed question of how Chernick's arm was broken for a jury to resolve.

County attorney Chris Clayton welcomed the outcome. "The jury recognized and acknowledged what we have always known — that our officers conducted themselves entirely appropriately and within the bounds of the law. We thank them for their service and careful attention to this case," Clayton said. Tramontana, one of the two retired officers named in the suit, was equally direct: "I was confident that we would get this verdict because myself and the other officers performed our duties as is our sworn oath."

Ira Chernick, 75, offered a sharply different view. "I was very disappointed," he said. "There was no justice for her, what they did to her. Although they got excused, I would like to think they learned their lesson."

The verdict arrives against a backdrop of recurring litigation over Suffolk County police conduct. In June 2024, the county agreed to a $1.75 million settlement with the family of Kevin Callahan, a 26-year-old Selden man fatally shot by police in September 2011 after a disputed use-of-force encounter. In 2023, a federal court approved a class-action settlement requiring the Suffolk County Police Department to establish precinct-level advisory boards, train officers on implicit bias, and improve traffic stop data following allegations that officers had repeatedly stopped, harassed, and robbed Latinx residents. A Newsday analysis published in 2015 documented that the county spent $37.4 million on lawsuit settlements and judgments between 2006 and 2013, a portion of which stemmed from police misconduct claims.

For Ira Chernick, Saturday's verdict closes a seven-year legal fight without the accountability he sought for his wife.