21-536

Steinbergin v. City of New York 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

Rulings by summary order do not have precedential effect. Citation to a summary order 

filed on or after January 1, 2007, is permitted and is governed by Federal Rule of Appellate 

Procedure 32.1 and this court’s Local Rule 32.1.1. When citing a summary order in a 

document filed with this court, a party must cite either the Federal Appendix or an 

electronic database (with the notation “summary order”). A party citing a summary order 

must serve a copy of it on any party not represented by counsel.

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 

held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the 

City of New York, on the 27th day of April, two thousand twenty-two.

PRESENT: Amalya L. Kearse,

Robert D. Sack,

Steven J. Menashi,

Circuit Judges.

____________________________________________

Troy Steinbergin,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v. No. 21-536

City of New York, Jamal Hairston, 

Undercover Officer 0076, Undercover 

Officer 0039, individually and in their 

official capacities,
2

Defendants-Appellees,

and

John or Jane Doe 1-10,

Defendants.*

____________________________________________

For Plaintiff-Appellant: Sang J. Sim, Sim & DePaola, LLP, Bayside, 

NY.

For Defendants-Appellees: Georgia M. Pestana (Richard Dearing, Elina 

Druker, Jesse A. Townsend, on the brief), 

Corporation Counsel of the City of New 

York, New York, NY.

Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern 

District of New York (Furman, J.).

Upon due consideration, it is hereby ORDERED, ADJUDGED, and 

DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

Appellant Troy Steinbergin appeals the district court’s dismissal of claims

* The Clerk of Court is directed to amend the caption as set forth above. 
3

brought against the City of New York (“City”) and multiple police officers of the 

New York Police Department (“NYPD”) under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, for alleged 

violations stemming from his 2014 arrest and subsequent conviction in New York 

state court for the sale of a controlled substance. In this appeal, Steinbergin pursues 

claims of false arrest and false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, malicious 

abuse of process, and denial of the right to a fair trial, as well as various parallel 

claims brought under state law. 1 We assume the parties’ familiarity with the 

underlying facts, procedural history, and arguments on appeal. 

I

On June 21, 2014, three NYPD officers, including Undercover Officer 0076

(“UC 0076”) and Undercover Officer 0039 (“UC 0039”), conducted a “buy-andbust” operation in Harlem. Around 7:00 p.m., UC 0076 entered a building at 1760 

Lexington Avenue and, using prerecorded buy money, purchased three foil 

packets of cocaine from a man in the stairwell of the building. UC 0076 then left 

the building and reported the transaction to his fellow officers, describing the 

1 The district court concluded that Steinbergin abandoned his failure-to-intervene claim 

against all defendants as well as his federal claims against UC 0039. Steinbergin does not 

appear to dispute either holding on appeal. Even if he had, it would not affect our 

decision to affirm. 
4

suspect who sold him the cocaine as a “[l]ight skinned” “black” “male” “wearing 

a black shirt with red lettering on the front of it.” App’x 32. “A few minutes” later, 

responding officer Detective Jamal Hairston arrived on the scene, “f[ou]nd a 

person matching that description”—Steinbergin—and detained him in handcuffs. 

App’x 32-33. “Approximately 3 or 4 minutes” after Steinbergin was first placed 

into custody, App’x 33, UC 0076 made “a confirmatory identification” that 

Steinbergin was the individual from whom he had bought the cocaine, App’x 72. 

Hairston also sent UC 0076 a photograph of Steinbergin and received a text 

confirmation: “positive, thanks.” App’x 34. Steinbergin was searched at the scene, 

taken to the local precinct, and searched again, though neither drugs nor the 

prerecorded buy money was found on his person. Steinbergin was indicted on one 

count of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree and one count 

of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree, though he 

denies that he sold drugs to anyone on that date or at that address. 

Steinbergin’s motion to suppress UC 0076’s positive identification was 

denied by the trial court, and Steinbergin was subsequently convicted of criminal 

sale of a controlled substance in the third degree and sentenced to four years in 

prison followed by three years of supervised release. In 2018, the New York 
5

Appellate Division reversed Steinbergin’s conviction, People v. Steinbergin, 73 

N.Y.S.3d 547 (1st Dep’t 2018), and on remand from that decision prosecutors

recommended dismissal of the charges because the arresting officers had “little to 

no memory of the circumstances of th[e] drug sale.” App’x 66. As a result, 

Steinbergin’s criminal charges relating to that incident were dismissed on October 

9, 2018, and on February 11, 2019, Steinbergin brought this action. On crossmotions for summary judgment, the district court granted the City’s motion and 

denied Steinbergin’s motion; this appeal followed. 

II

We review “de novo a decision on a motion for summary judgment.” 

Gonzalez v. City of Schenectady, 728 F.3d 149, 154 (2d Cir. 2013). Summary judgment 

is appropriate only when “there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the 

movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). “In 

determining whether there are genuine issues of material fact, we are required to 

resolve all ambiguities and draw all permissible factual inferences in favor of the 

party against whom summary judgment is sought,” and “[w]e may only affirm if 

it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of 

[his] claim which would entitle [him] to relief.” Terry v. Ashcroft, 336 F.3d 128, 137 
6

(2d Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

III

The existence of arguable probable cause for an arrest entitles a police officer 

to qualified immunity against a false arrest claim. See Jenkins v. City of New York, 

478 F.3d 76, 87 (2d Cir. 2007). Probable cause exists when “the officers have 

knowledge or reasonably trustworthy information of facts and circumstances that 

are sufficient to warrant a person of reasonable caution in the belief that the person 

to be arrested has committed or is committing a crime.” Weyant v. Okst, 101 F.3d 

845, 852 (2d Cir. 1996). Arguable probable cause exists when “a reasonable police 

officer in the same circumstances and possessing the same knowledge as the 

officer in question could have reasonably believed that probable cause existed in 

the light of well-established law.” Lee v. Sandberg, 136 F.3d 94, 102 (2d Cir. 1997).

Officer Hairston had arguable probable cause to arrest Steinbergin because

Steinbergin matched the description that UC 0076 had given Hairston minutes 

before, of a “black” “light-skinned” “male” “wearing a black shirt with red 

lettering” in the immediate vicinity of where the sale had occurred. Because 

officers may reasonably “rely on the accounts provided by other officers at the 

scene” in determining whether probable cause exists, Martinez v. Simonetti, 202 
7

F.3d 625, 635 (2d Cir. 2000); see also United States v. Durand, 858 F. App’x 452, 454-

55 (2d Cir. 2021) (holding that officers had probable cause for arrest because 

witnesses “had identified an individual ... who matched [the defendant’s] 

description”), these facts provide support for Hairston’s reasonable belief that 

Steinbergin had committed a crime. Without deciding whether the arresting 

officers had actual probable cause to arrest Steinbergin, the district court’s 

determination that arguable probable cause existed at the time of arrest was not 

erroneous. The existence of arguable probable cause is enough to dispose of the 

false arrest and false imprisonment claims because it entitles the defendants to 

qualified immunity on these claims. See Jenkins, 478 F.3d at 87 (holding that 

arguable probable cause for arrest entitles a police officer to qualified immunity 

against a false arrest claim). 

In addition, the district court properly dismissed Steinbergin’s false arrest 

and false imprisonment claims as time barred. We “look to state law for the length 

of the limitations period” for § 1983 claims. McDonough v. Smith, 139 S. Ct. 2149, 

2155 (2019). For claims arising in New York, the statute of limitations is three years. 

N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 214(5); see also Owens v. Okure, 488 U.S. 235, 249-51 (1989). Accrual, 

on the other hand, “is a question of federal law, conforming in general to common-
8

law tort principles.” McDonough, 139 S. Ct. at 2155 (internal quotation marks 

omitted). Claims of false arrest and false imprisonment accrue against a plaintiff

“when legal process [i]s initiated against him.” Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 390 

(2007). We have held that such process has begun “at least by the point a criminal 

defendant is arraigned on charges,” Watson v. United States, 865 F.3d 123, 131 (2d 

Cir. 2017), such that a plaintiff need not wait for his conviction to be overturned or 

invalidated to pursue an arrest-based claim, McDonough, 139 S. Ct. at 2159 (“A 

false-arrest claim ... has a life independent of an ongoing trial or putative future 

conviction—it attacks the arrest only to the extent it was without legal process, 

even if legal process later commences.”). In this case, Steinbergin was arraigned 

on June 22, 2014. Even if we were to consider accrual to have occurred when 

Steinbergin was convicted on April 22, 2015, the three-year statute of limitations 

expired well before he filed this lawsuit in 2019. The district court therefore 

appropriately dismissed these claims. 

Next, we turn to Steinbergin’s malicious prosecution claim. Here too, to 

prevail on a malicious prosecution claim under New York law, Steinbergin must 

show “lack of probable cause.” Savino v. City of New York, 331 F.3d 63, 72 (2d Cir. 

2003). The return of the grand jury indictment “creates a presumption of probable 
9

cause” against a claim of malicious prosecution “that may only be rebutted by 

evidence that the indictment was procured by fraud, perjury, the suppression of 

evidence or other police conduct undertaken in bad faith.” Id. (internal quotation 

marks and emphasis omitted). Steinbergin’s assertion that he never sold drugs to 

UC 0076, without more, cannot reasonably support an inference of fraud, perjury, 

suppression of evidence, or other bad-faith police misconduct, and thus this claim 

fails as well.

Steinbergin’s malicious abuse of process claim was also properly dismissed

because it was time barred. Because accrual began on June 21, 2014, the date of 

Steinbergin’s arrest, the three-year statute of limitations expired before he brought 

suit in 2019. Steinbergin suggests that his malicious abuse of process claim did not 

accrue until the termination of the criminal proceedings against him, but we 

disagree. See Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 486 n.5 (1994) (noting that “favorable 

termination of prior proceedings is not an element of” abuse of process); see also

Hadid v. City of New York, 730 F. App’x 68, 71 (2d Cir. 2018) (noting that, because 

“the fact of [a plaintiff's] ultimate conviction of the offense ... does not necessarily 

dispel the possibility that he was the victim of unconstitutional abuse of process 

in the events leading up to the conviction,” a plaintiff can “pursue[] [an abuse of 
10

process] claim while the ... prosecution [is] pending or while his conviction 

st[ands],” and, therefore “Heck tolling is ... not appropriate” for abuse of process 

claims).

Turning to the last of the federal claims pressed in this case, we analyze the 

district court’s dismissal of Steinbergin’s claim that he was denied the right to a 

fair trial. To prevail on a claim that the defendants denied him the right to a fair 

trial based on fabrication of evidence, Steinbergin must establish that an 

“investigating official” “fabricate[d] information” against him, Garnett v. 

Undercover Officer C0039, 838 F.3d 265, 279 (2d Cir. 2016), or otherwise “that the 

defendant knowingly ma[de] a false statement or omission” against him, Ashley v. 

City of New York, 992 F.3d 128, 143 (2d Cir. 2021). Steinbergin cannot make that 

showing simply by denying that he sold drugs to UC 0076. At most, this allegation 

(if credited) would support a reasonable inference that the arresting officers 

mistakenly identified Steinbergin instead of the real seller, but it cannot alone 

support a claim that any of the defendants fabricated evidence or knowingly made 

a false statement. Therefore, Steinbergin’s claim that he was denied the right to a 

fair trial was properly dismissed. 
11

Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to exercise 

supplemental jurisdiction over Steinbergin’s parallel state claims because each of 

his federal claims was properly dismissed. “[D]istrict courts may decline to 

exercise supplemental jurisdiction over” a pendent claim arising under state law 

when “the district court has dismissed all claims over which it has original 

jurisdiction.” 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3). “[I]n the usual case in which all federal-law 

claims are eliminated before trial, the balance of factors to be considered under the 

pendent jurisdiction doctrine ... will point toward declining to exercise 

jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claims.” Carnegie-Mellon Univ. v. Cohill, 

484 U.S. 343, 350 n.7 (1988). The district court’s reasoning that the questions 

implicated in the remaining claims were best left to state courts was not erroneous. 

* * *

We have considered Steinbergin’s remaining arguments, which we 

conclude are without merit. For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the judgment 

of the district court.

FOR THE COURT:

Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court