And Norman Siegel is representing Artyom Matusov, the plaintiff in this federal court complaint: Analyst Sues New York City Council Over Firing – NYTimes.com. begins:
A former policy analyst for the New York City Council filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday claiming he was fired in September for publicly voicing his criticism over testimony given by William J. Bratton, the police commissioner, at a public hearing.
The analyst, Artyom Matusov, was fired after contacting reporters, including one with The New York Times, to question statistics on the use of force by police officers that Mr. Bratton presented to the Council on Sept. 8.
“The data that they gave is, by their own records, not true,” he said at the time.
The suit, filed in United States District Court in Manhattan, asserts that the Council fired Mr. Matusov, an analyst since 2011, for speaking out, but that it gave him no explanation for its action.
“This is a classic free-speech case,” said Norman Siegel, a prominent civil rights lawyer representing Mr. Matusov. “The question is why was he fired and who approved the firing.”