WEBVTT - Minisode: Pappas v Giuliani 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:13.000 Cool Zone Media. Hello listeners, Molly Conger. Here, this is 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:16.720 something a little different. It's not a new full length episode, 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:20.320 but it's not a rerun either. It's just a tiny, little, 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.520 bite sized story about a weird little guy. I'd like 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:25.439 to try to do more of these, just a few 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:28.479 minutes about various side characters I found in my research 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:31.440 who didn't really warrant their own tangent in an episode, 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:33.800 but they're interesting enough that you might like to hear 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:37.000 about them, just for a few minutes. We'll see if 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:40.400 I managed to follow through on that, but for now today, 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:47.720 here's a little treat I recently found myself for normal 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:51.960 work related reasons, combing through the campaign finance reports for 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:56.279 David Duke's nineteen ninety six campaign for US Senate. There 0:00:56.280 --> 0:01:00.280 are obviously some names in there that I recognize. A 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:04.959 donation from longtime clan lawyer Sam Dixon, salary payments made 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:07.399 to a longtime Duke associate who happens to be the 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:08.800 son in law of a guy who died in a 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:13.200 shootout with US Marshalls, things like that. Some of the 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:16.200 names on those forms or stories I'll tell you eventually, 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:20.080 But as I was flipping idly through lists of small 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:25.080 dollar donors. One line caught my eye, not because it 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:28.280 was a name that I recognized, but because of his profession. 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:31.880 Almost all of the people willingly putting their name on 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:34.640 the record as a David Duke donor by nineteen ninety 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:40.880 six were retired. Line after line after line donors list 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:44.720 their occupation as retired, and for those who did work, 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:49.000 they were almost all self employed. But on August twenty seventh, 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:53.880 nineteen ninety six, David Duke's campaign received a five hundred 0:01:53.880 --> 0:02:00.640 dollars contribution from a New York City Police officer. Nineteen 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:03.120 ninety six was a pretty long time ago at this point, 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:05.640 so I was pretty sure there was no chance this 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:09.360 man was still employed by the NYPD, But I was 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:12.880 curious if his fondness for David Duke ever caused any 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:16.480 issues for him in his professional life. That seems like 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:20.000 a pretty safe bet, right, But honestly, it might not 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:23.200 make him that much more racist than any given NYPD 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:27.480 officer chosen at random. But it turns out that Officer 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:32.000 Thomas Poppus did something else in the mid nineties that 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:36.519 almost ended up in front of the Supreme Court. See 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:41.359 In the nineties every year, the Miniola Auxiliary Police Department 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:44.720 sent out mailings requesting donations to their McGruff, the crime 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:48.760 Dog anti drug program. Most people throw that kind of 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:52.400 thing away. Some people will write a check and put 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:54.840 it back in the pre addressed return envelope to make 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:59.680 a donation. But every year one envelope came back to 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:05.000 that barvolunteer organization stuffed with anti Semitic cartoons, pamphlets with 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:08.880 racist conspiracy theories, and materials published by a group called 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:13.480 the National Association for the Advancement of White People. And 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:17.239 by nineteen ninety seven, the volunteer organization receiving these mailings 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:21.799 went to the police. After years of getting these hateful mailings, 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:26.600 they'd hired a company to encode the reply envelopes. If 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:29.880 someone mailed back one of these smaller donation envelopes, they'd 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:32.760 be able to tell exactly where the original mailing had 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:36.280 been sent. So when the racist flyers showed up that year, 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.600 they used the tracking code to connect that envelope to 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:43.400 a particular PO box, and when they went to the police, 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:47.280 they were able to determine that PO box was registered 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:50.480 to a New York City police officer, and so to 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:53.360 test their theory, the Nassau County Police sent a fake 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:56.800 letter to that po box soliciting donations for a charitable cause, 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:00.960 and he took the bait, the stuffed reply envelope with 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:04.760 racist flyers, and mailed it back. Nasau County then turned 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:07.840 the investigation over to the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau, and 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:11.120 they too tested the theory. They mailed Thomas Papus a 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:14.840 letter asking for donations to a charitable organization, and he 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:19.360 returned the envelope full of anti Semitic cartoons. And when 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:22.359 he was confronted with this evidence, he did eventually admit 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:25.640 that he'd done it. He tried to be casual about it. 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:27.960 At first he said it was just a hobby, and 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.440 then it didn't mean anything, and then later in the 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:32.640 same interview, he said it was a form of protest 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:36.400 because he was quote tired of being shaken down by 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:41.200 charitable organizations. And it turned out that while had just 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:43.520 been the one organization who finally figured out where the 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:46.840 mailings were coming from and went to the police, he'd 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:51.560 done this hundreds of times over the years to countless organizations. 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:54.719 After he admitted to the mailings in nineteen ninety eight, 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:57.240 New York Times reported that he was probably going to 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:00.440 be allowed to retire with his pension. After a full 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:04.080 investigation and disciplinary hearing and a lot of public outcry, 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:08.720 he was found guilty of prohibited conduct and fired, so 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:12.320 he sued. He filed a lawsuit in federal court, naming 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.920 New York City, the police commissioner and the mayor as defendants, 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:22.080 which in two thousand makes the case citation Pappas v. Giuliani. 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:27.200 Papas claimed he'd been unfairly terminated in retaliation for engaging 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:30.960 in protected First Amendment conduct. The Southern District of New 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:35.119 York disagreed. Pappas was absolutely within his right to mail 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:38.120 people racist pamphlets, but that's not the issue here. He 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:42.200 wasn't criminally charged for it, and there is significant case 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:45.240 law that allows government employers to take disciplinary action when 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:48.080 it comes to speech by public employees when there is 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:51.120 a legitimate government interest in promoting the efficiency of the 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:55.719 public services it performs through its employees. Papas may have 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:57.880 had a better case here if he'd been engaged in 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:01.840 speech that looked more like pro if he'd made any 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:04.440 attempt to engage in public discourse, or if he'd mailed 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.640 the flyers to parties who were engaged in public activity 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:11.480 on the issues he claimed he was protesting, but he 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:15.479 was just mailing garbage to any random organization unlucky enough 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:18.800 to have sent him a pre addressed envelope. Quoting from 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:24.520 the opinion, mister Poppus suggests that somehow, by anonymously sending 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:27.480 his white supremacist literature to any charity with the misfortune 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.279 of soliciting a donation from him, he was commenting on 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:34.720 perennial matters of public concern, such as taxation, political history, race, 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:40.279 and religion. This claim defies reason and the record. Although 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:43.040 the First Amendments protection does not turn on the effectiveness 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:47.000 of a speaker's media strategy, mister Poppas's purported strategy for 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:51.520 addressing the matter of public concern is so plainly unreasonable 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:55.760 it belies his claim that addressing matters of public concern 0:06:55.920 --> 0:07:00.760 was ever his intention. So his speed, which was, as 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:05.919 the Court wrote, of relatively low First Amendment value. And 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:07.680 then on the other side of the scale, there's the 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.440 very real concern of the government employer that his activity 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:15.280 could disrupt government business. His activities had become a matter 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:18.320 of real public concern. People were very worried that this 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:23.040 cop hated Jews and black people. So they can't fire 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:26.800 him for being racist, for having racist ideas. They can't 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:29.920 fire him for what's in his heart. But they fired 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:33.800 him for being racist in public, out loud, and in 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:36.760 a way that was damaging to the department's reputation and mission. 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:41.080 And look, just for the sake of this legal argument, 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:43.720 try not to laugh at the idea of the NYPD 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:49.000 having a reputation that could be tarnished like this. Okay, So, 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:51.600 after he lost this lawsuit, he appealed the decision up 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:53.560 to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in two thousand 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:56.600 and two, and they affirmed the lower court's decision, with 0:07:56.840 --> 0:08:00.720 one judge on that three judge panel dissenting. And the 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:03.800 descent makes a number of arguments. You know, he wasn't 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:06.200 a supervisor. He did this on his own time. He 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:08.240 didn't do it at work. He did it privately, He 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:13.040 did it anonymously, and most alarmingly. The dissent argues that 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.600 if the department had never disciplined him in the first place, 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:19.920 the public trust wouldn't have been damaged because no one 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:22.360 ever would have known that it was a cop doing this, 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:26.360 that the department itself is responsible for the damage to 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.960 its own reputation, because I guess the proper course of 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:33.640 action here would have been to cover up this policy violation. 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:37.319 The case was back in the news a few years 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:41.880 later when that dissenting Judge Sonya Soto Mayor was nominated 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:45.640 to the Supreme Court. I found several op eds citing 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:48.640 this dissent as proof that she was a fair minded 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:52.680 defender of free speech, and these were largely attempts to 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:56.360 counter right wing attacks on her nomination. But if you 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:59.520 look back at the majority opinion in this case, for 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.680 College Leaguess called her descent a misunderstanding of the law 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:09.840 and seriously misguided. As Oliver Wendell Holmes said in eighteen 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.480 ninety two, a policeman may have a constitutional right to 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:17.680 talk politics, but he has no constitutional right to be 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:23.000 a policeman. So it turns out police departments really can 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:27.520 fire a cop for being extremely racist in his private life. 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:46.959 They just usually don't want to. We're Little Guys is 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:49.880 a production of Cool Zone Media and iHeartRadio. It's research, 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:53.440 written and recorded by me Wiley Coner. Our executive producers 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:56.480 are Sophy Leuctriman and Robert Evans. The show is edited 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:59.319 by the wildly talented Roy Gagan. The theme music was 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.160 composed by Brad Did. You can email me at Weird 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:05.080 Little Guys podcast at gmail dot com. I will definitely 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:07.800 read it, but I probably won't answer it. You can 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.000 exchange conspiracy theoris about the show with other listeners on 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:13.000 the Weird Little Guys supper at it. Just don't post 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:14.320 anything that's going to make you one of my Weird 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:14.880 Little Guys