NEW YORK CITY (PIX11) – A high-ranking NYPD official tried to evade drunk driving charges in 2022 by getting a Manhattan bar to delete security camera footage after he downed a dozen drinks inside, according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Now, NYPD Deputy Inspector Paul Zangrilli, faces a slew of charges related to the attempted cover-up, including operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, falsifying business records and tampering with physical evidence.
Prosecutors said Zangrilli drove his unmarked department-issued vehicle after having five shots and seven beers at a bar near Penn Station in 2022. He had jumped in the driver's seat after his girlfriend, who was also drinking, crashed the car into a cab on Tenth Avenue and West 30th Street, according to the district attorney’s office.
The cab driver followed Zangrilli, eventually got a cop’s attention, and told the officer that Zangrilli and his girlfriend were drunk and had fled the crash, prosecutors said. The responding officer told the cabbie to submit an accident report and left the scene as Zangrilli repeatedly offered to pay the cab driver cash rather than exchanging information, prosecutors said.
When the cab driver called 911, Zangrilli repeatedly lied to officers at the scene, saying he had pulled over after the collision and was not drinking, according to prosecutors. Zangrilli went to the 5th Precinct to report for duty, and then left for his girlfriend’s apartment so inspectors couldn’t find him at his house to check whether he was drunk, according to Bragg.
But prosecutors eventually got their hands on the bar’s surveillance camera footage.
Zangrilli started at the department in 2005 as a police officer, city records show. He then rose through the ranks as a sergeant, lieutenant, captain and became deputy inspector in 2021. He has been honored a few times for outstanding police duty, city records show. He was suspended without pay after the crash, according to the New York Daily News.
Zangrilli is expected back in court in September, court records show.
Emily Rahhal is a digital reporter from Los Angeles who has covered New York City since 2023. She joined PIX11 in 2024. See more of her work here and follow her on Twitter here.
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