A Brooklyn beer-garden owner won a court battle against a barmaid who had accused him of groping her — and then had an affair with the detective working the case.
Dale Hall, 46, wept into his hands as Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Robert Straus declared him not guilty Wednesday of sexual abuse, ending a nearly four-year legal nightmare in which he lost his daughter and his bar.
“I’m just glad the lies are over,” said Hall, who sobbed as he left the court.
Hall was accused of reaching into the panties of brunette server Saskia Hochschild in June 2010 at Hall’s Fort Greene German beer hall, Die Stammkneipe.
Hall says the waitress, 31, cooked up the sex claim in September of that year, because she was afraid of losing her job.
“I was about to fire her,” he said. “I called her to cut her shifts down and she hung up.”
Hochschild reported the alleged assault to Detective Rene Orrego, who arrested Hall two days later at Die Stammkneipe.
Orrego and Hochschild started dating about a month later, although he didn’t admit it to his bosses.
In his testimony last week, Orrego, a 14-year NYPD veteran, said he lied in March 2011 about dating Hochschild because it’s “frowned down upon by the department to fraternize” with a complainant.
The couple is now married, and NYPD Internal Affairs investigators are looking into their relationship.
Probers have not revealed any finding, but now believe Orrego broke department rules by “fraternizing” with Hochschild, according to documents obtained by The Post.
During that trial, Orrego admitted that he brought the charges although his gal pal had been drinking the night of the alleged incident and even stayed at the beer garden for at least an hour after it had happened.
Defense attorney Thomas Gass argued that the case had many problems, including a lack of physical evidence.
Hall had previously declined a plea deal because he was “aware that Detective Orrego’s credibility is shot,” according to the Internal Affairs report.
Reached at her Deer Park, LI, home, Hochschild declined to comment. Orrego could not be reached.
Additional reporting by Leonica Valentine