Metro

False arrest nixed my Army bid

A New York City man claims cops prevented him from being all he could be — by slapping him with a bogus trespassing charge that caught the eye of an Army recruiter.

Austin Redd says he was visiting a friend in Coney Island’s Gravesend Houses project in January 2010 when NYPD officers stopped him near the seventh-floor elevators and asked him if he lived there.

When he explained he was calling on a pal, they arrested him, according to a lawsuit he filed last week in Brooklyn federal court. The charges were dropped.

“Because of this arrest a permanent mark was placed on [Redd’s] record, which in turn led to him not being allowed to volunteer in the United States Army,” court papers say.

A simple trespassing arrest can be the difference between boot camp and the boot, according to Army spokesman Sean Marshall.

“The NYPD needs to know that their policy of arresting New Yorkers on bogus charges in order to bolster their numbers has real-world consequences,” said Redd’s lawyer, Paul Hale.

The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment.

kboniello@nypost.com