Lawyers for three cops charged with committing sodomy in a Brooklyn subway station portrayed the victim as a scam artist who suffered no injuries — except those he inflicted on himself.
In his opening statement yesterday, lawyer John Patten said Michael Mineo, 25, was “digging, digging, digging into his backside” and may have caused a “superficial laceration to his rear end.”
Patten represents Officer Richard Kern, who is accused of beating and sodomizing Mineo with a retractable baton. Officers Alex Cruz, 28, and Andrew Morales, 27, also are on trial, charged with covering up the attack in the Prospect Park subway station on Oct. 15, 2008, after they caught Mineo smoking pot.
All three have pleaded not guilty.
Meanwhile, prosecutors got off to a rough start yesterday when their first witness couldn’t tell the difference between Mineo and his alleged attacker.
When witness Andrea Dallas was asked on cross-examination to identify Kern, who was sitting at the defense table with the other officers, Dallas said, “I would assume that’s Michael [Mineo]. I’m not sure.”
Later, Cruz’s lawyer, Stuart London, asked Kern to stand up.
“Is that the individual you saw running from cops?” London asked Dallas.
“His hair was longer and fluffier, but that’s him,” she said.
Prosecutor Charles Guria said Mineo’s DNA was found on Kern’s police baton, his underwear had a tear in it and he was hospitalized for internal injuries.
Before he went to seek medical attention, the cops issued him a summons and let him go, threatening that they would arrest him for “something serious” if he went to a hospital or a police station, Guria said.