New York cop who claimed fellow officers were sending her threatening texts arrested for allegedly sending them herself

A female police officer in upstate New York accused her fellow officers of barraging her with threatening text messages, including invitations to kill herself. It appears that 36-year-old Emily Hirshowitz of the Ossining Police Department might be her own worst enemy.

Hirshowitz was charged Wednesday with three felony counts of first-degree filing a false instrument and four misdemeanor counts of third-degree falsely reporting an incident, reported the Journal News.

"There's a lot of mystery and confusion surrounding the allegations in this case and we'll evaluate as we learn more," said Paul DerOhannesian, the Albany criminal defense lawyer representing Hirshowitz.

Hirshowitz, on the force since 2016 and a police officer with the New Rochelle department two years prior, claimed in a report to the Westchester District Attorney's Office in White Plains in May 2022 that she had been the target of harassing text messages from multiple unknown numbers.

According to court documents, she claimed "that a fellow police officer or multiple police officers at my department are involved."

In July and August, Hirshowitz provided investigators with screenshots of additional text messages she claimed to have received, which were laden with obscene and abusive language, some urging her to commit suicide.

The Journal News indicated that village and police officials reached out to the WDAO on numerous occasions, expressing concern about the "increasingly threatening content" ostensibly being directed Hirshowitz's way.

The mounting pressure apparently prompted investigators to double down on their probe even after Hirshowitz — whom the OPD previously indicated "doesn't particularly care for publicity" — told them on Aug. 12 that she no longer wanted to pursue the complaint.

Fear over the purported harassment campaign snowballed, such that on Aug. 23, OPD Chief Kevin Sylvester held a mandatory meeting for those on the force as well as the mayor and other village officials to discuss the text messages.

Greater attention brought greater scrutiny of the offending messages, which investigators began to suspect may have been sent by Hirshowitz in the first place.

The New York Post reported that by October, investigators obtained a search warrant for the officer's phone and Apple iCloud account. They soon determined that she was the likely culprit behind the messages and that several of the phone numbers linked to the damning messages were under her control.

Hirshowitz would thus have allegedly known that her complaints filed with the district attorney's office contained false information.

The 36-year-old has been suspended with pay and is due to appear at the White Plains City Court on July 12.

While alleged victim and aggressor may soon face justice together, the criminal complaint indicated Hirshowitz could have had an accomplice, noting that a different individual known to the WDAO possibly sent some of the texts captured on three of the screenshots Hirshowitz gave to police on July 1, 2022.

Although a second suspect has not been charged or named in the case, Michael Santangelo, a lawyer for Louis Rinaldi, the former Ossining police officer who resigned last year after facing unrelated disciplinary charges, noted his client was a focus of the investigation, reported the Journal News.

The Journal News indicated the WDAO, the OPD, and Mayor Rika Levin had yet to respond to requests for comment.