get these nets
Veteran
N.Y.P.D. Sergeant Is Charged With Shoplifting From Target
Sgt. Rayna Madho was charged with two counts of petty larceny for stealing from a store on Long Island on two different occasions.
Dec. 10, 2024
The police in New York City have been, for the past few years, struggling to address a jump in shoplifting and petty thefts. So far this year, the Police Department has recorded more than 57,000 retail thefts; at this time last year, there were 55,543.
But on Saturday, a New York City police sergeant was arrested and charged with two counts of petty larceny after officials said she was caught shoplifting at a Target on Long Island.
The sergeant, Rayna Madho, 41, was arrested by police in Nassau County in connection to two thefts from the store in Valley Stream, one on Dec. 7 and an earlier incident on Nov. 24.
On Dec. 7, Sergeant Madho was using the self-scanning machines and did not scan all of her merchandise, the Nassau County police said. A store employee stopped her.
She did not respond to a request for comment, but her arraignment is scheduled for Dec. 27 in Hempstead, where she is expected to plead guilty or not guilty.
She has been suspended without pay, according to a spokesman for the New York Police Department.
Sergeant Madho joined the police force in 2006; she was promoted to detective in 2013 and then sergeant later that year. She worked in several precincts around the city, including in Manhattan and Brooklyn. In 2021, she began working with a unit that arranges photo arrays for detectives investigating cases citywide.
City payroll records show that she has earned a little more than $201,000 this year, nearly $55,000 of which she made working overtime.
Sergeant Madho was born in Trinidad, the daughter of a police officer there, according to an Instagram post by the Sergeants Benevolent Association. She was also a leader in the NYPD Desi Society, an organization representing officers of South Asian and Indo-Caribbean descent.
At least seven different civilian complaints have been lodged against the sergeant, alleging excessive force, discourtesy and abuse of authority. The city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board exonerated her in one instance and deemed all of the other allegations either unfounded or unsubstantiated.
There is no history of disciplinary action in her police record, which lists several awards for meritorious police work.
Ms. Madho was named in five lawsuits, all of which she settled for a total sum of $161,000. In one, a man in Brooklyn sued Sergeant Madho and three other officers for pulling him from a Pilling Street stoop in 2015 and unlawfully arresting him for possessing marijuana.
The case against the man was eventually dismissed, and the lawsuit was settled for $7,500.
The sergeant’s arrest comes as stores and the police contend with an increase in petty thefts in recent years. Retail thefts are up 4.3 percent from 2023 on a year-to-date basis, while petty larceny is down 0.3 percent.
In April Michael LiPetri, chief of crime control strategies, said that shoplifting was a problem that had been “front and center” for four years, in part because of recidivism. Last year, Mayor Eric Adams rolled out a plan to address retail theft, calling for policy changes, a dedicated task force and a neighborhood watch group
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