WILLIAM “WILD BILL” STANTON IS A FORMER NYPD ROOKIE WHO RETIRED WITH A DISABILITY PENSION BECAUSE HE BROKE HIS TRIGGER FINGER. THAT DIDN’T STOP THE NYPD FROM ISSUING HIM A LICENSE TO CARRY A GUN. STANTON USED IT TO MAKE MILLIONS AS A CELEBRITY BODYGUARD AND PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR—WHILE COLLECTING MORE THAN A MILLION DOLLARS IN DISABILITY PAYOUTS. NOW HE’S FOX NEWS’S FAVORITE COPAGANDIST.

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FOX News' favorite police "expert" is a former cop who didn't make it past rookie because he made a rookie mistake that cost him his NYPD career in 1987.

Patrolman William Stanton was racing after a suspect on foot beside railroad tracks in the Bronx when he misjudged the height of a jump he needed to make to continue the chase. He used his hands to break his surprisingly long fall, but severed the ligament and nerves in his trigger finger.

“I go to grab my gun, and it was dark, and I didn’t seem to be able to get at it. For a minute, I didn’t understand what was going on. My fingers just wouldn’t curl around the handle. Then I saw the blood squirting everywhere,” Stanton recalled in 2001.

Despite two surgeries and nearly a year of rehabilitation, he couldn't properly fire the NYPD's then-standard issue .38 caliber revolver. Its standard 16-pound trigger pull was too much for Stanton’s reconstructed finger to reliably activate. He was forced to retire on disability. 

The 24-year-old couldn't pull the trigger of a standard-issue NYPD .38, but that didn't stop the NYPD from granting Stanton a license to carry a handgun of his own choosing.

The NYPD did not respond to The Free Lance’s request to answer how Stanton could have qualified for an NYPD-issued pistol permit with a broken trigger finger.

Stanton’s lawyer, Kenneth Belkin, said in a statement to The Free Lance that there “is no law that precludes someone with a disability from maintaining a pistol license, provided they meet the criteria for licensing. To do so would be discrimination.”

William used that license—and the pistol it legally authorized him to carry almost anywhere inside the United States—to transform himself into "Wild Bill." The Puerto Rican and Polish kid from the Bronx crisscrossed the country making millions of dollars as a swaggering, gun-toting celebrity bodyguard and private investigator—all while cashing more than a million dollars in taxpayer-funded "disability" pension payouts for his allegedly broken trigger finger. 

Stanton even worked with heavyweight lawyer Joe Tacopina—currently former President Donald J. Trump’s criminal defense lawyer. Stanton and Tacopina successfully defended one of the NYPD officers who allegedly helped fellow NYPD officer Justin Volpe sodomize Abner Louima with a broken broomstick in 1997. They also investigated and successfully defended parents suspected of killing their own child who, they said, simply vanished one night in 2011. No one was ever charged. The baby’s disappearance remains a mystery.

These days, Stanton is FOX News' go-to police expert. Police accountability activists call him something else: a copagandist. 

For example, Stanton has said cops should never be held accountable, for anything. He's also maligned Progressive Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg as "living in the Twilight Zone."

Stanton even faced-off against activist Van Jones on CNN and defended the unlawful, false arrest of an obviously pregnant woman (eight months) forced to the ground, stomach-first, to be handcuffed. And he defended it to CNN’s Erin Burnett—who was, at the time, just as visibly pregnant as the falsely arrested pregnant woman. Stanton said the pregnant woman "escalated" the situation. The cop was the victim. Her alleged crime? Refusing to show ID when the law did not require it but police demanded it anyway.

"Get behind law enforcement. Don't castigate cops. Don't look to prosecute cops for doing their job. Indemnify them" from lawsuits, Stanton urged the public, another time, on FOX News.

FOX News presents Stanton as its expert "former NYPD officer." Stanton applied for, and was granted, "Accident Disability Retirement" after barely two years on the job, the New York City Police Pension Fund disclosed in response to a Freedom of Information Law request.

Irena Briganti, FOX News’ publicist, did not respond to an email asking why FOX News considers Stanton qualified as a police expert.

The City officially cashiered Stanton Jan. 31, 1988, according to the pension fund. It paid him $2,382.15 per month plus cost of living increases "of $679.50 per month” in 2022. The cost of living increases kicked in five years after Stanton retired, according to the fund's rules. Assuming the rules were followed, Stanton has collected more than a million dollars in the 35 years since.

To be eligible for "Accident Disability Retirement," the pension fund's rules require its medical board "find the member to be physically or mentally unable to perform police duties as the result of an accident sustained in the line of duty."

Stanton confirmed he received a disability pension in a 2011 interview. He said “they call that 'Poor Man's Lotto' because you get that check no matter what." 

While ex-cop William Stanton collected disability payouts from the fisc, "Wild Bill" Stanton made more than a million dollars per year, according to the print equivalent of a sloppy blowjob New York Magazine gave him in 2001. The profile, "The Not So Private Eye," reported Stanton "built a private-detective agency with a seven-figure annual gross."

The 6,000-plus word cover story was illustrated with a full-page color photo of Stanton standing next to a stretch limousine in Times Square, pistol on his hip. The headline read: "Have Gun, Will Party." The magazine even gave Stanton's gun a sexy fetish gloss: "Strapped to his waist is a Kimber Ultra Elite CQB, a lightweight .45-caliber aluminum pistol. The Ferrari of handguns, the Kimber seems to shine even in the flat light of this dreary, sunless day."

As the title “Have Gun, Will Party” suggests, Stanton's gun was central to the success of Stanton's second life as "Wild Bill." But the venerated news weekly’s published reporting failed to explain how Stanton managed to get a pistol permit and fire a gun with a broken trigger finger. It also failed to explore how he built a profitable business and kept his disability pension.

Stanton talked with The Free Lance but declined to comment for the record.

Belkin, Stanton’s lawyer, said his client “is in compliance with all NYPD pension regulations regarding his disability, as well as other state and city requirements. “

Stanton's police pension is controlled by city law, officially known as the New York City Administrative Code. § 13-254 of the Code empowers fund administrators to reduce pension payments to any allegedly "disabled" cop who sufficiently recovers and becomes gainfully employed. It also empowers the board to compel recipients to submit to yearly medical examinations to determine their fitness for employment.

It appears the pension fund never questioned Stanton's status as disabled, based on the information provided by the pension fund in response to the Freedom of Information Law request. This despite the fact Stanton was pictured as the personification of fitness and professional success, armed with a gun, in a tight-fitting muscle shirt, on the cover of New York Magazine in 2001.

Kevin Halloran, Executive Director of the New York City Police Pension Fund, did not respond to The Free Lance’s request to disclose whether Stanton’s disability pension was ever audited.

However, the fund’s legal department acknowledged in an email that the fund does have the legal authority to “suspend” disability payments, before the 20th anniversary of retirement, if the recipient works and earns “more than maximum annual earnings pursuant to NYC Ad. §13-254. “

The fund disclosed it requires “disability retirees who have not yet reached their 20th anniversary to submit financial disclosures to the Fund every year.”

The fund failed to respond to a follow-up inquiry whether Stanton complied with the fund’s reporting requirements and, if so, whether his financial statements ever admitted making more than the "maximum annual earnings.”

So how was Stanton able to pull it off? A big part of the explanation is institutional.

The police pension fund is controlled by a 12-member Board of Trustees. Eight are police union officials and another is the NYPD commissioner. Only the mayor, the Commissioner of the Department of Finance and the Comptroller represent taxpayers' interests. They’re outnumbered 9-3.

The Mayor’s Office, the Department of Finance and the Comptroller all did not respond to a request for comment.

After leaving the NYPD, Stanton first earned a living working as an armed bouncer in a Manhattan club called Rascals. Referring to a notorious Prohibition-era Chicago saloon officially called “New Delaware” but nicknamed "Bucket of Blood," Stanton said the name applied to Rascals too.

"The term 'Bucket of Blood'? That was the place," he said. "There wasn't a night when we didn't work when there wasn't a fight."

The handgun carrying ex-cop’s primary job was to talk patrons out of fighting. It wasn't to fight them. He said the experience taught him how to be a great liar. It's "much better to bullshit a guy out of a club," he said, "then throw him out."

"I have a black belt in bullshit," Stanton bragged. "I did pride myself on being the king of bullshit."

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