While a criminal jury found them not guilty of rape, ex-cops Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata are likely to lose a pending $57 million civil suit by their accuser, legal experts said yesterday.
“I think there’s a great likelihood of that prevailing,” lawyer Susan Karten said of the fashion executive’s Manhattan federal court suit, which accuses Moreno and Mata of assault, false imprisonment, trespass and infliction of emotional distress during the 2008 incident.
“I think that case would probably be won,” Karten added.
She noted that in the lawsuit, filed in 2009, the accuser must prove she was raped only to a preponderance of the evidence — more than 50 percent likely of being true — instead of the much higher burden of beyond a reasonable doubt required for criminal conviction.
But Karten also said the accuser faces “a very tough burden” of getting a civil jury to decide that the NYPD is liable for the cops’ alleged actions — because the Police Department could argue the two were acting well outside of their scope of employment.
And if the NYPD is not held liable for negligence and breach of duty, the accuser is likely to get little or no money damages, she said.
But lawyer Ron Kuby said the city has “a powerful incentive to settle the case” and pay the victim without risking going to trial — and potentially suffering a “catastrophic” jury award.
Kuby noted the criminal court jury convicted Moreno and Mata of official misconduct, and that they were promptly fired by the NYPD yesterday — clear evidence that the two had acted improperly.
Another reason for the NYPD to settle is to avoid alienating rank-and-file cops by letting Moreno and Mata defend the case on their own, he said.
A lawyer for the woman, whose name is being withheld by The Post, did not return calls for comment.