A federal jury on Feb. 23 returned a defense verdict in favor of several New York City police officers who were sued by a man who said he was wrongfully arrested for felony drug possession, foreclosing what the plaintiff’s attorney had seen as an opportunity to bring alleged overtime abuses in the department to light.

But Gabriel Harvis, who represented plaintiff Hector Cordero in the case, said the so-called “collars for dollars” practice, in which officers make false arrests near the end of their shifts to clock extra overtime pay, has come up in other individual damages cases against the New York City Police Department and is an issue that is “ripe for further scrutiny.”