Editor’s note: This story is the first in a series investigating police disciplinary records across New York State. USA TODAY Network-New York, Central Current and students from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications have teamed up to reveal records that remained hidden until 2020, when New York politicians repealed laws hiding police officers’ disciplinary records. USA TODAY Network-New York obtained the records through the Freedom of Information Law.
Jail mugshots are a routine part of incarceration, a custody record. Officers posing with a prisoner exposed for a “demeaning” photograph are not.
Three Baldwinsville police officers about 20 years ago abused an incarcerated person, previously hidden disciplinary records obtained by Central Current and USA TODAY Network-New York revealed.
Officer James Cerankowski took a digital photograph as officers Thomas Czyz and Jered Zeppetello “exposed” and “posed with” the prisoner in a way that was “demeaning” to the prisoner, disciplinary records show. Cerankowski and Czyz have since left the department; Zeppetello remains.
Policing expert and retired New York Police Department officer Michael Alcazar condemned the reported photo, calling it “unacceptable behavior.” Alcazar, an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, reviewed the case for Central Current.
“They’re already incarcerated,” Alcazar said. “There’s no need to further embarrass them. It’s a lack of professionalism on the police officers’ part. It’s unacceptable to take images of a prisoner because it’s also a right of privacy. It’s a violation of civil rights … it’s just unacceptable behavior.”
The disciplinary records have just recently become public after the 2020 repeal of New York Civil Service Law Section 50a that previously shielded New York officers’ police discipline from public view.
‘Great potential to bring discredit’
Baldwinsville Police Department officials at the time acknowledged the image’s capacity to bring shame to the agency.
“This photograph gave the appearance of being demeaning to the prisoner and had great potential to bring discredit to the Baldwinsville Police Department if it became public,” Cerankowski’s written reprimand reads.
When reporters asked current Baldwinsville Police Chief Michael Lefancheck to release the 2005 photo, Lefancheck replied by saying he’d provided all documentation of the incident. He has not released any photo and did not clarify whether the department still has the photo or what it depicts.
The disciplinary documents don’t reveal the name of the person arrested, what the person was arrested for or where the incident took place. The charges against the person detained by Baldwinsville police were dismissed in May 2006.
The disciplinary documents do not elaborate on what Cerankowski took the photo with — whether that may have been a digital camera or a flip phone.
When reviewing the Baldwinsville case, Alcazar’s first thought was the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, he said.
When Abu Ghraib was reopened by the United States military in August 2003 after its invasion of Iraq, U.S. soldiers documented abuse they carried out against prisoners — including taking disturbing photos of detainees as soldiers posed with them.
CBS aired photos of the abuse in April 2004, provoking a global condemnation of the U.S. military’s conduct and its human rights violations.
Roughly a year after the Abu Ghraib photos aired, the Baldwinsville incident happened, according to the officers’ disciplinary records.
It’s not clear whether the Baldwinsville photo depicts content similar to the Abu Ghraib photos.
Alcazar believes incidents like the Baldwinsville case are rare. He said he never saw a similar incident in his 30 years with the NYPD.
‘A paid vacation’
Despite being reprimanded for taking the same “demeaning” photo, the three officers’ consequences varied.
The charges for taking the photo were lumped in with various other “reckless” and “unbecoming” misconduct by Czyz and Zeppetello — such as driving patrol cars at high speeds, according to their disciplinary records.
For all of the various charges, Czyz received a paid 10-day suspension, while Zeppetello was suspended for five days. Records did not show whether Zeppetello’s suspension was paid. Czyz and Zeppetello were also sentenced to “remedial training.”
Cerankowski’s only punishment was a written reprimand.
The three officers received little punishment for taking the photo, Alcazar said.
“That’s a paid vacation — basically a paid vacation — so that’s not even a heavy hit,” Alcazar said of Czyz’s suspension. “He’s not even gonna feel that, because he’s still getting paid.”
In the 20 years after the incident, the three officers built long, successful careers.
Zeppetello remains at the Baldwinsville Police Department. Cerankowski retired in 2022. The two earned ever-increasing salaries. According to SeeThroughNY, a database maintained by the Empire Center for Public Policy, Cerankowski made more than $100,000 in his final year with the department — his pension now costs taxpayers just over $50,000 annually. In 2024, Zeppetello also made more than $100,000, the database shows.
Czyz eventually left the Baldwinsville Police Department for the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office, where he worked through 2019. Taxpayers now contribute just over $30,000 annually to fund Czyz’s pension.
Czyz used his law enforcement career to lend credibility to his company Armoured One, a prominent U.S.-based security and safety company.
The company touts itself as protecting schools from shootings and provides safety gear like bulletproof vests to law enforcement agencies. Zeppetello is also a tactical consultant at Armoured One, training school faculty on how to handle school shootings, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Cerankowski declined to comment on the incident and directed questions to Lefancheck.
“You guys aren’t fair to us at all, so don’t even bother,” Cerankowski said. “I got nothing to say.”
“We know how it works. You know, no matter what I say or all the good I did in my twenty-plus career means nothing because that’s soft. Hence the reason why you’re publishing this,” he said.
Cerankowski did not respond to a request to talk to him about the “good” he said he’s done in his career.
Lefancheck denied reporters’ requests to talk to Zeppetello, who still works at the department. Attempts to reach Czyz have been unsuccessful.
‘Certainly not tolerable’
Lefancheck, a Baldwinsville lieutenant in 2005, investigated the photo incident at the time.
“I think right there we had a breakdown. We had a breakdown in our standards and our expectations,” he told Central Current. “Something like that is certainly not tolerable. It’s not condonable. And it’s not behavior that we would teach. It’s not behavior that we would expect, and it’s not a manner in which we would want individuals that are in our care to be treated.”
Lefancheck, who began with the department in 1972, said he believes now that the three officers could have received a “harsher sentence.” But responsibility for the punishment ultimately was up to former Chief Daniel Warner, Lefancheck said.
“I will say there were times where I might not have agreed with (Warner’s) rulings,” Lefancheck said.
Central Current and USA TODAY Network-New York tried to reach Warner for comment but have been unsuccessful so far.
The Baldwinsville department does not have any set standard disciplinary responses to officers’ offenses, Lefancheck said. The police chief couldn’t recall the discipline the officers received in 2005 or what was included in their remedial training.
Lefancheck does not support the department enacting a standard policy for misconduct discipline, a typical practice in police departments.
“I wouldn’t buttonhole ourselves into saying, ‘This is the way we’re doing it,’” he said.
Small agencies like Baldwinsville usually don’t have “as robust of checks and balances” as large forces such as NYPD have, Alcazar said. There are several internal affairs units to “police the police” within the NYPD, including inspections and use of force units, he said.
Police departments like Baldwinsville don’t always have the funding to build out internal affairs units, Alcazar said.
“If you don’t have a separate unit to do that, and you’re just relying on the immediate supervisors to do that, it’s probably not going to happen, or it’s not going to be done well,” he said.
Alcazar pointed at the “subculture” of a department as being key to preventing similar incidents. He posited that the culture of the department could have prompted officers to take pictures of a prisoner.
Incidents like the one in Baldwinsville present the opportunity to determine if abusive behavior is prevalent, Alcazar said.
“If it’s not nipped in the bud, if they don’t address it, it usually festers into something worse,” Alcazar said.
‘There was more investigation than this’
Czyz’s and Zeppetello’s disciplinary documents that Central Current obtained from the Baldwinsville Police Department provide little detail about the incident.
The information that does appear in the documents was edited by hand. The documents originally stated the officers “posed a prisoner” — but was later edited to “exposed a prisoner.” The photo was originally described as “demeaning,” while the hand-marked edits suggest changing the wording to a “photo that COULD be considered demeaning.”
It’s not clear who made the handwritten notes on the document, or when they were made.
Lefancheck sat for a 40-minute interview about the incident. As he pored over the documents reporters obtained, the police chief said he remembers “there was more investigation than this.”
After the interview, he sent reporters documents that did not expand on the incident. When a reporter asked additional questions about the incident, including to share the photo, Lefancheck replied he had already shared all documentation of the incident.
“I have no further information to offer,” Lefancheck said.
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