New York City Will Pay Up to $475 for Every Time You Were Held in Central Booking — $21.5 Million Across Three Cases, the City's Own Jail Records Set the Count, and Claims Close October 19

The settlement website states the deal in one sentence: “The City of New York has agreed to pay up to $21,500,000 into a settlement fund. Class members will receive up to $475 for every time that they were held in a Central Booking facility” during the class periods. Every time. Someone processed through Central Booking three times in the window is looking at three payments, not one.

You do not have to prove any of it. The notices went out because, in the site's words, “NYDOC records indicate that you are a member of the group of people affected.” The Department of Correction's own logs are the evidence, and they also set the count: “Your payment amount is based on the number of times that you were detained.” If you think the records undercount you, the FAQ says to contact the administrator, who “will consult with the parties and get back to you with a final calculation.” If you still disagree, you can object or opt out — the options chart on the site lists “Challenge Payment Amount” as its own route, and a challenger still gets paid and is still represented by class counsel.

One phrase to read carefully: up to. The fund is “up to $21,500,000” and the payment is “up to $475.” The site does not spell out what happens if valid claims exceed the fund. We are not going to fill that gap with an assumption; it is the one number on the page that is not fixed.

The three cases are Capobianco et al. v. The City of New York et al., No. 1:21-cv-06125; Brennan et al. v. The City of New York et al., No. 1:19-cv-2054; and Aboubakar et al. v. The City of New York et al., No. 1:20-cv-01716 — all in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, in Brooklyn. They were filed in April 2019, April 2020, and November 2021.

The claim, as the site summarizes it, is that the city “detained plaintiffs in unconstitutional conditions and therefore violated their rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Central Booking is where people go after arrest and before arraignment; there is one facility in each borough. The lawsuits are about the conditions of that holding, not about the arrest itself.

The city has not conceded the point. The FAQ records that “The City of New York denies that it did anything wrong but has agreed to settle the lawsuit on a class-wide basis.” The parties agreed to settle in May 2026; “The Court has not decided in favor of either side.”

The class definition has two windows and they cover different buildings.

Window one: April 8, 2017 through December 27, 2019 — Brooklyn Central Booking only. That is the Brennan case's period. If you were held in Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens or Staten Island in 2018, you are not in the class for that detention.

Window two: February 3, 2020 through March 1, 2023 — all Central Booking locations. That is roughly three years and one month, and it covers every borough.

The five weeks between December 27, 2019 and February 3, 2020 are simply not covered, in any borough. Neither is anything after March 1, 2023. The site lists both ranges in the same sentence in every FAQ answer that touches eligibility, and the notice went only to people whose records fall inside them.

The dates run in an order that trips people up, because the deadline to leave comes before the deadline to file.

Monday, October 5, 2026 is the deadline to opt out and the deadline to object. Both are postmark deadlines for a signed letter to the Central Booking Settlement Administrator at P.O. Box 58220, Philadelphia, PA 19102 — “Attn: Exclusions” or “Attn: Objections.” Opting out means no payment and no objection, but you keep the right to bring your own case.

Monday, October 19, 2026 is the claim deadline. The site's rule is blunt: “You MUST file a claim form to get paid.” Being in the DOC records puts you in the class; it does not send you a check. Claims go in online or by mail, and the form lets you choose check, PayPal, Venmo or Zelle.

Thursday, October 22, 2026 at 11:00 a.m. is the fairness hearing, at the U.S. Courthouse, 225 Cadman Plaza East, Brooklyn — three days after claims close. The site adds that the date “may change without further notice to the class.” If the settlement is approved, the FAQ's timing estimate is that payment will be sent “likely by the end of 2026.” That is a faster line than most class settlements offer, and it is stated as “likely,” not promised.

This is the detail that changes the arithmetic. Class counsel — Giskan Solotaroff & Anderson, the Law Office of Richard Cardinale, Bergstein & Ullrich, and the Law Office of Scott Korenbaum — will ask the court for up to $2,950,000 in attorneys' fees and costs. The FAQ is explicit that “This money will not come out of the fund for the class.” The same is true of administration: “Defendants shall pay all settlement administration costs of the Settlement.”

Counsel will also ask for service awards “between $8750 and $15000 to the 67 Class Representatives” for their time on the case. Sixty-seven named plaintiffs is a large number for a class action and reflects three separate lawsuits being folded into one settlement.

So the “up to $21,500,000” is, unusually, the amount actually earmarked for people who were held — not a gross figure that shrinks by a third before distribution. That is the reason the per-detention number can be stated up front at all.

New York City pays out a great deal of money over police and jail conduct, and most of it goes to individuals with an injury to prove. In our own database of 39,210 police-misconduct claims paid by U.S. cities — built from New York City Comptroller, Chicago and Los Angeles records plus the FiveThirtyEight dataset — the median individual payment is $15,000. A $475 payment sits below 99 percent of them.

That is not a criticism of this settlement; it is what a conditions-of-confinement class looks like. The people covered here did not each file a claim, hire a lawyer and document a specific harm. They were identified from jail logs, and the payment is a flat amount per detention with no proof required. The trade is scale for size: a class that, at $475 a head and a $21.5 million cap, could reach on the order of 45,000 detentions, against individual suits that pay more and reach almost nobody.

Anyone with a separate, serious injury from a Central Booking detention should read the opt-out section carefully before October 5. Staying in the class releases “any other lawsuit against The City of New York and the other Defendants about the issues in this case.” The release is the price of the check.