It’s no jail, no probation and no community service for notorious, caught-on-video bike-push cop Patrick Pogan.
At an emotional sentencing today, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley let the 24-year-old ex-rookie walk out of court, in tears, without any penalty whatsoever — besides having suffered through what Pogan himself called “this nightmare.”
“I hope to put this nightmare behind me and to prove to you that I am a highly productive member of society,” the young ex-cop had told the judge.
Pogan was a third generation officer who, ten days on the job, was captured by civilian video violently shoving a Critical Mass cyclist off his bike and to the pavement in Times Square two years ago.
Acquitted of the shove — Pogan had testified in April that he was only following police orders to stop law-breaking cyclists by whatever means necessary — he’d been convicted of a felony for lying on paperwork to frame the cyclist for assault.
In giving Pogan no penalty, the judge said he relied on a probation report that recommended no jail, along with the evidence at trial.
Pogan had insisted through his defense and on the witness stand that he didn’t try to frame the cyclist, but had simply mis-remembered events while talking to prosecutors.
“I’d spent my entire short adult life trying to help people as a police officer, as a coach, and as an emergency medical technician,” Pogan had told the judge today, as he asked in a quavering voice to be spared from jail.
“That was my dream,” he said, in a statement utterly free of apology.
The sentencing followed an April mixed verdict in which jurors cleared Pogan of violently shoving admitted stoner Christopher Long off his bicycle as a Critical Mass demonstration rolled past him in Times Square two years ago.
The jury had convicted, though, on charges that Pogan lied to prosecutors in insisting — contrary to two civilian videotapes — that Long had been weaving in and out of car traffic, then rammed his bike into the cop, knocking the cop down.
Because of those false statements, Long was held in jail for 23 hours and charged with misdemeanor assault and resisting arrest, charges later dropped.
Pogan, whose father and grandfather had been cops, had faced anywhere from zero to four years jail today.
Assistant district attorney Ryan Connors, who’d cross-examined Pogan while trying the case for the DA’s office three months ago, had asked for some, unspecified time in jail, calling Pogan an outright perjurer.
“He told a blameless story of fantasy where he did nothing wrong and everyone around him had distorted the truth,” Connors said of Pogan’s testimony.
But defense lawyer Stuart London, in asking successfully that there be no penalty, countered that Pogan was just a kid — “A boy of tender age,” the lawyer called him — who’d made an honest mistake during his first-ever arrest.
“People make mistakes in all walks of life,” London told the judge. “Poele make mistakes that are not done intentionally to hurt people. That’s why they’re given a second chance.”
He added, “Ultimately, he suffered enough,” London added. “He’s lost his job. He’s lost his stature in the community. He’s lost sleep for two years.”
Because of his felony record, Pogan will forever be barred from law enforcement work — and can’t even join the fire department, the lawyer said.