NYPD officer charged with faking her own harassment, blaming colleagues

36-year-old Emily Hirshowitz from the Ossining Police Department in New Yorkwas taken into police custody on Wednesday, according to media reports from July 4. 

Hirshowitz is being charged with four counts of third-degree falsely reporting an incident, and three counts of first-degree filing a false instrument, according to The Independent.

“This is a case of a harassed woman and it is riddled with mystery and confusion,” her attorney Paul DerOhannesian told The Independent in a statement via email.

Hirshowitz’s claims of harassment

Hirshowitz allegedly reported that she was receiving threatening messages from her colleagues to the Westchester District Attorney’s Office in May 2022.

Hirshowitz told the office that “a fellow police officer or multiple police officers at my department are involved,” according to court documents obtained by the Rockland / Westchester Journal News.

The messages presented referred to Hirshowitz as “dumb,” “useless,” and “reject,” and on one occasion called for Hirshowitz to commit suicide.

Police Chief Kevin Sylvester called a meeting to discuss the situation in August of 2022, which is when Hirshowitz decided to rescind her complaint, according to The Independent.

Why do investigators suspect that Hirshowitz faked the messages?

In October 2022, investigators began looking into the complaint. They obtained a search warrant to look through Hirshowitz’s phone and Apple iCloud account. It was here that it was discovered that the texts were sent from phone numbers linked to Hirshowitz using apps that had her email and IP addresses associated with them, according to NBC News.