NYPD officers acquitted on charges of sodomizing marijuana smoker with police baton

We’ve previously reported on the case of Michael Mineo and the NYPD.  In December of 2008 a grand jury indicted three NYPD officers on charges they held down and sodomized a man on a subway platform whom they suspected was smoking pot:

The Brooklyn police chased Mineo into the station after spotting him smoking and that is where, Mr. Mineo claims, that the cops tackled him kicked him and then sodomized him with a baton. The police officers then gave him a summons and threatened that they would go to his house and serve him with a felony charge if he went to the hospital for treatment. The officers are denying that part of the story, but his story is corroborated by eyewitnesses – including a transit police officer.

So we have a man who is taken to the hospital with obvious signs of anal rape with a foreign object.  We have a transit cop who testified that he saw three NYPD tackle the man and sodomize him with a police baton.  Ah, but the man tackled is an admitted pot smoker, body piercer, and member of the Crips gang with a lengthy arrest record, so therefore…

(USA Today) A New York City police officer accused of a sodomy attack on a drug suspect in a subway station was acquitted Monday along with two other officers who had been accused of covering it up.

Officer Richard Kern had faced as many as 25 years in prison if convicted of aggravated sexual abuse. Officers Andrew Morales and Alex Cruz could have faced up to four years in prison on charges of hindering prosecution.

Mineo claimed he was assaulted in the subway station on an October afternoon in 2008 after they chased him for lighting marijuana on the street.

He said that after he was handcuffed, one of the officers sodomized him with a baton. According to Mineo, the officers hauled him to a squad car, but then got spooked about what they had done and tried to buy his silence by letting him go, even though there was a warrant out for his arrest.

Mineo was hospitalized for days after the encounter, then returned again later for more medical care for an abscess.

In many ways the case hinged on the believability of Mineo, a self-professed member of the Crips gang who has been arrested several times and admits to smoking pot regularly.

In juxtaposition, Kern and Morales testified about their Catholic-school upbringing, their Little League coaching and their families. They kept their cool under cross-examination.

Jurors spoke to the media and explained that the acquittal came due to “reasonable doubt” that crept into Mineo’s testimony.

(Gothamist) Jury forewoman Jamie Dove (a photographer) explained the verdict: “It was just reasonable doubt. Things weren’t consistent. Stories were changing from the grand jury testimony to what he said he saw… He used different words. He went from ‘rammed’ to ‘side to side.’ So he wasn’t sure about what was done to him.” And another juror, Stevan L. Miller, told the Times the prosecution’s case had “so many holes” that “the defense didn’t have to do anything.”

Jurors also wondered why several key pieces of evidence—Michael Mineo’s boxers, pants and surveillance video of him shortly after the attack—were introduced by the defense, not the prosecution. “The fact that the defense did it was a red flag,” Dove told the Post. Mineo and another witness had testified that he had blood on his hand after the arrest, but after seeing Mineo put his hands in his pockets on the video, they requested the pants, and found no blood. Prosecutors also failed to counter testimony from a forensics expert who said that the hole in Mineo’s boxers could not have been caused by the retractable baton.

The evidence in the case is troublesome.  Did Michael Mineo seize an opportunity following a marijuana bust to concoct a story to sue New York City for millions?  There is the point that he was hospitalized for days following the encounter but also the point that no blood was found in his pants.  Did a gang member with a rap sheet just fail in bilking the city or did an abusive NYPD cop just get away with it… again?

(New York Times) During occasionally tense deliberations, one juror, a young woman, told the group that Officer Kern had been convicted of police brutality twice before, and was met with “shocked silence,” Mr. Miller said. She was replaced by an alternate juror on Friday. (Officer Kern was cleared in two cases of excessive force by the Civilian Complaint Review Board, but one of those cases, in 2007, led to two lawsuits the city settled for $50,000.)