A Brooklyn man who spent four years in jail for attempted murder before his conviction was tossed in January is suing two NYPD cops he claims coerced witness testimony in the case.
Clarence Bailey claims that officers Michael O’Keefe and Michael Collins strong-armed witnesses to ensure his wrongful conviction for attempted murder during a 2007 nightclub brawl where another man was brutally slain, according to his Brooklyn federal lawsuit.
Bailey spent four years in prison for the attempted murder of Terrence Villanueva at a party to watch the Floyd Mayweather Jr. versus Oscar De La Hoya boxing match at the Groove Lounge in Bedford-Stuyvesant before an appellate court overturned his conviction in January, according to court papers.
A man pointed a gun at Villanueva and pulled the trigger but the gun jammed, the suit states. The same shooter then trained his gun on another man, Luis Ruiz, and killed him.
Bailey was found guilty of the attempted murder rap but was cleared of the slaying by a jury in 2009. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison before the appellate court released him.
Bailey claims that O’Keefe and Collins – who have been at the center of several federal lawsuits – forced witnesses to finger him as the gunman that night despite knowing that he was innocent, according to the suit.
He also names officer Joseph Tallarine in the suit.
Bailey also alleges in the suit that investigators from the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office also coerced witness testimony and prevented exculpatory witnesses from being identified and heard.
Ruiz was shot several times and urinated on as he lay dying after a vicious brawl that pitted two groups of spectators against each other, according to the suit.
Bailey claims that he was sliced across the face during the fight and went to a restroom to tend to his wounds before hearing gunshots explode outside the now defunct club.
He claims that he was an innocent bystander to the melee but that O’Keefe and Collins zeroed in on him as a suspect and set up other witnesses to take him down, according to the suit.
The lawsuit alleges that the officers threatened to revoke the parole of one of the brawlers, Kalieb Miller, if he didn’t testify that Bailey was the shooter that night.
Bailey also claims that Villanueva – who admitted to being high and drunk during the fracas – was coerced by cops into blaming Bailey for pointing the gun at him and futilely pulling the trigger, the suit states.
Villanueva testified that he saw Bailey train the gun on him but that he didn’t see him murder Ruiz, according to the suit.
In a bizarre verdict, the jury cleared Bailey of gun possession and Ruiz’s slaying – but found him guilty of pointing a gun at Villanueva.
He spent four years in prison before an appellate court tossed the verdict because it was “against the weight of evidence presented at trial,” according to the suit.
Bailey is now suing the city and the individual officers for a slew of civil rights violations.
O’Keefe shot and killed a man in Washington Heights during a stop in 1992 and riots erupted after a grand jury declined to indict him after ruling it a justified shooting.
A former NYPD colleague of O’Keefe, James Griffin, is currently suing him for trying to pin the blame for a botched murder investigation on him and then partaking in a campaign of retaliation after he refused, court papers show.
The suit also alleges that Collins wrongfully pinned a murder on an autistic man who spent a year in prison before his conviction was overturned in 2006.
The city law department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.