A Brooklyn federal judge is mulling the following legal question: If an ex-cop is pleasuring himself in the bushes and no one sees it, is it public lewdness?
Retired Detective Joseph Tesoriere was arrested last August after he allegedly beckoned an undercover Parks Service cop into a remote area at Plum Beach — a tiny sliver of Gateway National Park known for horseshoe crabs and gay hookups — and fondled himself.
During a bench trial, his lawyer argued that it was not public lewdness because the bushes hid his client’s behavior.
“It is impossible to perform a visible lewd act when the lower body is obscured by August vegetation,” his lawyer, Robert Feldman, argued in court papers.
Feldman also claimed the undercover officer was lying.
“The officer perjured himself,” Feldman said. “He couldn’t testify how long it was. He couldn’t testify how big his penis is.”
Feldman claimed Tesoriere was simply urinating when the cop saw him.