HACKENSACK, NJ — Ten years. Two fired cops. One apartment raid. And a legal battle that just won't die.

Former Hackensack police officers Rocco Duardo and Victor Vazquez are still fighting to get their badges back after a 2016 apartment search that turned into a career-ending legal nightmare.

Their latest attempt to undo their firings was rejected by a judge in August. But the cops aren't walking away.

Their lawyers have filed for reconsideration and say they plan to appeal, keeping alive a case that has already ping-ponged through New Jersey's courts for years.

It all began in December 2016, when Duardo, Vazquez and five other Hackensack officers entered a third-floor apartment without a warrant.

The cops said they were responding to information about possible drug activity and a report that a child might be unattended inside. They said they were conducting a welfare check and entered through an unlocked door.

The city said it was an illegal search.

Then things got ugly.

An anonymous letter triggered an internal investigation. Surveillance video later surfaced that officials said contradicted the officers' account.

The fallout spread into the criminal courts. The Bergen County Prosecutor's Office dropped charges in eight active criminal cases involving the officers, saying their credibility had been compromised.

The city suspended the officers without pay and eventually moved to fire them.

But Duardo and Vazquez fought back — and initially won.

In 2021, the Civil Service Commission reversed their firings and ordered Hackensack to pay the pair hundreds of thousands of dollars in back pay.

The city appealed.

In 2022, the state Supreme Court declined to overturn the commission's decision.

Then, two years later, the legal tables turned again.

The Appellate Division ruled for Hackensack in 2024, finding that the officers' status as "Brady Officers" — cops whose alleged credibility problems must be disclosed to criminal defendants — effectively impaired their ability to serve as police officers.

The court also cited the impact on department morale and public respect for the police.

The officers were fired again.

Now they're arguing that the appellate judges didn't have the full picture.

Duardo and Vazquez say that after getting their jobs back in 2021, they weren't sitting behind desks collecting paychecks. They say they were back on patrol, making arrests, issuing summonses and backing up other cops while the legal battle continued.

Their attorneys argue that the appellate court should have known that when it decided the officers couldn't effectively perform their jobs.

A Superior Court judge wasn't buying the latest challenge.

In August, Judge David Nasta dismissed the motion, ruling that his court didn't have jurisdiction to overturn an Appellate Division decision. He also found that the officers waited too long to bring the challenge.

Their attorneys have asked for reconsideration.

"Somebody's got to hear it and make a call on the merits," attorney Eric Kleiner said.

"As far as we're concerned, this is a case where these cops had their positions robbed from them. It was a robbery of their jobs under false pretenses."

Vazquez is also fighting a separate lawsuit against Hackensack and former city officials, claiming they made false and damaging statements about him following the 2016 raid and during his attempt to return to the force.

He alleges the statements cost him jobs, wages, benefits and his reputation.

The lawsuit also claims that after his reinstatement, city officials subjected him to fitness evaluations, assigned him to non-police jobs and eventually required him to undergo field training normally given to rookie cops.

Hackensack disputes the allegations.

Mayor Caseen Gaines has called the case another "legacy lawsuit" inherited from the previous administration, saying current city leaders had nothing to do with the alleged conduct.

But for Duardo and Vazquez, the past isn't past.

A decade after that apartment door opened, the fight over what happened behind it — and whether the two cops should still have their badges — is still going.