Freddy Martin
Casmine Aska (Pool photo)
NO SENSE: Casmine Aska is suspected of pushing a 9-year-old neighbor off the roof of this building. (
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The Bronx teen accused of flinging his 9-year-old neighbor off the roof of their five-story apartment building told cops it was an accident — but offered at least three versions of what happened.
Casmine Aska, 17, initially told police that little Freddy Martin was walking along the ledge of the roof and fell, law-enforcement sources told The Post. After more questioning, he said his younger brother and Freddy were “play fighting and Freddy fell” from the Nelson Avenue apartment building in Morris Heights.
Then, he offered another version.
“I grabbed Freddy around the legs. His feet were off the ground. I turned around, and I slipped, and Freddy fell,” Aska told police, according to a criminal complaint.
Freddy told police a more sinister story about his older neighbor as he was rushed to the hospital Friday night, Assistant Bronx District Attorney Dahlia Olsher-Tannen said in court yesterday.
Before his lost consciousness, Freddy told police Aska came down to his apartment and dragged him to the roof, sources said. “Cas dragged me to the roof and threw me off. I don’t know why,” she quoted the boy as telling cops.
Sources said one of Freddy’s sneakers was found in the hallway and the other was on the roof, along with his broken eyeglasses.
“It was a sign of a struggle,” one source said. “[Aska] gave various statements and they didn’t add up.”
Aska was charged on Sunday with attempted murder, reckless endangerment and several counts of assault. A judge denied him bail and set another court appearance for Thursday.
Olsher-Tannen said Freddy “may not survive.”
He has a broken arm and leg and has had four blood transfusions to deal with internal bleeding, she explained.
“He had bones protruding from his skin as well and internal bleeding . . . Doctors cannot locate where the bleeding is coming from,” the prosecutor told the judge.
At the arraignment, defense attorney Katherine Dyer called the case a “tragic accident.”
“That will be clear as time goes on,” she said.
Philip Rivera, 44, who also lives in the Nelson Avenue building, said that he didn’t hear any commotion on Friday night.
“That would mean he would have been dragged right past my door, and any yelling or screaming I would have heard,” Rivera said. “For me not to hear it? No. Everyone would have come out if they heard that.”
Rivera said Aska, who Dyer said was still on probation for another offense, would often sit in the lobby and smoke cigarettes, “but he wasn’t a bad kid — nothing violent like this.”
Additional reporting by Larry Celona