It's not that they can't find justification for harsher charges - he's got a fuck ton of cases pending against him. The $1.5 Million is what the city has paid out so far.

>One of the two cases in the trial stemmed from an incident where, in order to strip-search a man in a holding cell after police had found him carrying a dime-bag of marijuana, Dym allegedly punched the man repeatedly, pushed his knees into the man’s body as the man lay in a fetal position and performed the cavity search, according to the CCRB.

Fuck that guy.