His face is being shielded to protect the innocent — even though he’s not one of them.
Disgraced undercover NYPD Detective Wojciech Braszczok was hauled into court on felony gang-assault charges Wednesday for allegedly terrorizing a Manhattan family during a biker-mob assault near the West Side Highway, but he won the right to keep his mug out of the public eye.
Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Tamiko Amaker barred news photographers from snapping the cop in court, buying his defense lawyer’s argument that exposing his face “would jeopardize his life and his family.”
The Post has clear photos of Braszczok’s face, but has chosen not to publish them, lest that endanger the lives of the undercover heroes he works with.
“My client has been an undercover . . . in the Intelligence Division of the NYPD, infiltrating various organizations,” lawyer John Arlia told the judge as Braszczok was arraigned on charges that could jail him for 25 years.
Amaker was also told that Braszczok has been supplying undercover intelligence for the feds, a source said.
After court, he skulked away with a hoodie covering his head — even he uses his identity on social media.
The shamed cop has a Mohawk in his Twitter photo, and is a skirt-chasing braggart whose Web pages are filled with topless women and fast cars.
He was so careless that he used close variations of the same screen name — “evovillen” — for both real-life and undercover communications while infiltrating Occupy Wall Street last year as “Al” the protester.
Braszczok, 32, of Queens, who was sprung on a $150,000 bail bond, has referred to himself as a cop online since at least 2005.
He never changed his handle when he became an undercover around 2008, using it on Twitter, Instagram, motorcycle forums and dating sites — including in work-related posts to his Occupy “buddies.”
When he wasn’t pretending to be a protester, Braszczok trolled for “girls” as young as 18, posted half-naked self-portraits and promised would-be dates that he is “athletic” and “attractive.”
“Looking for girls 18-34, up to 20 miles from me,” according to his current online dating profile on Singlesbee.com
“Fire, law enforcement and security,” Braszczok says of his employment. He lists himself as Catholic, never married but still a dad, though he admits he doesn’t live with his two kids. Records show he is married.
Braszczok tweeted under the handle @evovillen, sharing videos of extreme and stunt motorcycling — and arranging rallies, apparently as part of his undercover work.
“Come join us in spring training by occupying the stock exchange today at 2:30 p.m.,” he posted last year, referring to an April 2012 OWS demonstration.
The job had its perks, too.
“Hard day at work tonight,” he brags in the caption to a photo he tweeted two years ago, showing a table laden with two half-empty pints of beer and plates of calamari and crab cakes.
In his online photo album, Braszczok also poses at nightclubs with a bevy of three fetching young women.
Then there are his boudoir pix, showing two of the shapely mystery women — the blonde wearing a fishnet body stocking and the brunette in a lacy pink thong.
The undercover was also careless enough to post a photo of his souped-up Silver Mitsubishi sitting smack outside his Long Island City, Queens, condo.
His wife, Eve, used that pad as collateral to post his bond and spring him from jail following his arraignment Wednesday.
“He was thrilled to get out and see his family,” bail bondsman Ira Judelson said of Braszczok.
At the court appearance, Assistant DA Samantha Turino demanded high bail, arguing, “This defendant was clearly present and actively participated” in a gang of motorcyclists’ startling, broad-daylight predation on a Financial District family who had unwittingly driven across their path on the West Side Highway.
Cellphone video and snapshots from the melee indicates that Braszczok’s initial story to investigators that he wasn’t part of the violent mob — and left before the beating began — was an abject lie.
Braszczok, identifiable by his distinctive red Yamaha and black biker vest, zooms up the highway in pursuit of the family’s Range Rover, according to viral video from a camera mounted on another biker’s helmet.
And according to the criminal complaint, the off-duty cop is clearly depicted in additional photos, wearing his black vest with the emblem of the New Rochelle-based club “Front Line Soldiers” on the back as he used his motorcycle-gloved fist to bust out the Range Rover’s rear window.
The attack — with as many as seven additional bikers — left 33-year-old Internet exec Alexian Lien cut and bruised on the pavement from a barrage of boots, sneakers and fists as his wife and 2-year-old daughter cowered in terror.
So far, a total of six alleged rampaging bikers, including Braszczok, have been charged with gang assault. Clinton Caldwell, 32, of Brooklyn, was arraigned after Braszczok in the same courtroom.
The sixth, James Kuehne, 31, of Brooklyn, was charged with gang assault, assault, criminal mischief and criminal possession of a weapon.
He was held Wednesday night at the 33rd Precinct station house in Washington Heights and was awaiting arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court Thursday.
Sources said he was under arrest for helping to drag Lien out of the Rover and using his helmet in the beatdown.
Additional reporting by Georgett Roberts and Matt McNulty