‘Strip Club Cop’ Who Was Fired By State Police Lands Job With Port Authority

Talk about a revolving boor: The New York State trooper who was fired after transgressions so egregious that he was barred from ever serving again as a cop in New York State was hired by the Port Authority as an engineer.

Michael Lin was fired from the State Police in September 2025 — after an investigation that revealed that he skipped an August 2024 patrol shift in the bridges and tunnels unit to visit a strip club in New Jersey and get arrested for assaulting his girlfriend, as Streetsblog first reported in May.

In April 2025, in the midst of that investigation, Lin applied to the Port Authority. Here’s where one bureaucrat’s left hand didn’t know what the right was doing: As part of its background check process, the Port Authority asked the State Police about Lin’s employment. The State Police said that Lin was, indeed, an active trooper.

But the State Police never said anything about Lin’s arrest in New Jersey on that hot August night, or the subsequent internal affairs investigation that was unearthing numerous allegations of misconduct and ended up getting Lin fired and permanently decertified.

A spokesperson for the State Police told Streetsblog that the agency was simply following New York State law — which makes it difficult for anyone outside the orchard to know about the bad apples.

“The Port Authority did not request disciplinary records,” spokesperson Beau Duffy said. “If the Port Authority had requested disciplinary records, this case would not have been disclosed without Lin’s authorization since it was still pending.”

Shortly after Lin applied to work at the Port Authority, New Jersey authorities ended up dropping their criminal case against him. A few months later, he cleared the Port Authority background check.

Lin was fired by the State Police in September 2025. His work with the Port Authority, as an engineer on PATH trains, began weeks later.

Why this is so troubling

Lin’s ability to get a job with the Port Authority, a public agency, raises serious questions given this former cop’s record while supposedly protecting and serving the people of New York State.

Lin’s shocking arrest for simple assault in New Jersey when he was supposed to be making arrests in New York City sparked a much larger internal investigation of the State Police’s bridges and tunnels unit. Multiple troopers told investigators that they spent hours of paid time napping in parking lots or scrolling their phones, as Streetsblog reported in May.

Some troopers spent entire shifts without reporting any interactions with the public.

Lin’s misconduct stood out from his peers. He was the only trooper who left the state during a shift, and he was the only trooper who was arrested by another police agency during a shift. A day before his New Jersey arrest, he had sex with a woman in his car during his shift, he later admitted to investigators.

Investigators also found evidence that Lin lied about living in a sparsely furnished apartment in Manhattan when, in fact, he seemingly lived in New Jersey with his wife and kids. Lin also had a plate cover on his vehicle that investigators believed helped him evade tolls while driving to and from New Jersey for his shifts.

Streetsblog recently obtained one of Lin’s recent Port Authority pay stubs listing his address as a residential property in Union City, N.J.

Lin has sued the State Police over his firing, alleging racial discrimination in the overwhelmingly white police agency, but Duffy, the state police spokesperson, reiterated that Lin’s firing stemmed from “his own egregious misconduct.” 

Lin’s lawyer said his client had found closure, at least in his professional life.

“Mr. Lin has moved forward professionally following his termination,” attorney Eric Sanders told Streetsblog, alleging “fundamental inaccuracies” in our prior reporting that he declined to specify. “Mr. Lin’s present employment does not alter the claims asserted in his lawsuit.”

The Port Authority declined to comment on Lin’s hiring.