Richie was born and raised in West New York, NJ where he became a police officer at the age of 20.  In 1994 he approached federal authorities with allegations his police agency was being controlled by organized crime members.  Rivera went undercover in a $25 million racketeering enterprise, posing as a crooked cop.  He was later suspended and fired by the Town because of his investigation which implicated top police and elected officials.  He later sued the agency and successfully settled the case which included him retiring from the police department.  For more than 14 years, Rivera assisted federal authorities in convicting more than 60 individuals involved in public corruption.  From his undercover work with the FBI, he developed abilities and techniques for detecting acts of corruption.

Rivera moved on and worked on police cases with the ACLU-NJ and as a consultant for other clients.  He worked with nationally recognized experts in field studies on racial profiling by police and logged more than 35,000 driving miles in the process.  The work overturned numerous convictions for people who were unlawfully targeted by police and resulted in multi-million dollar civil suits.

Rivera went on to volunteer for the Police Complaint Center, a clearinghouse for citizen complaints against police officers.  Later he became the Chief Investigator and then Director of Operations and Investigations.  He had more than one hundred interactions with police officers while testing agency complaint intake systems and was unlawfully detained in two interactions which were subsequently televised.  During his work at the complaint center, Richie also spoke nationally to religious, community and police groups about racial profiling, police misconduct and accountability.  He’s testified at three separate government hearings relating to these topics and still consults law enforcement authorities in developing public corruption cases and addressing employee accountability.

Being recognized for his expertise, he has submitted several expert reports on behalf of victims of police abuse and has worked pro bono for many clients, including police officers.  In the past, he has helped dozens of victims of police misconduct pursue complaints against abusive officers and also assisted police officers wrongfully accused of misconduct. 

Richie is the past second vice president of the Human and Civil Rights Association of New Jersey.  He is a past board member of the ACLU-NJ and past advisor to the ACLU-NY Campaign Against Police Brutality.  He authored “Nine Ways to Prevent Racial Profiling,” the first template ever designed for police departments to address profiling issues which was published in Law & Order magazine, as well as the New Jersey Police Complaint Review Project 2000.  In 2009 he co-authored "The Crisis Inside Police Internal Affairs" with the ACLU of New Jersey.  The report highlights the barriers to accepting citizen complaint and offers dozens of recommendations.

Currently he is completing his Masters Degree focusing on police internal affairs and accountability in New Jersey.  He has the state's largest database of internal affairs complaints, spanning over 10 years.  Rivera is also the Civil Rights Protection Project Chairperson for the Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey (LLANJ), the state’s largest advocacy group for the Latino community.

Rich can be reached at 201-204-3258 or e-mail: info@richardrivera.com