Two Staten Island cops charged with stripping a teenager to his underwear and dumping him in a swamp pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct yesterday after prosecutors said the boy did not want to testify against them.
Officers Thomas Elliassen and Richard Danese encountered the boy, Rayshawn Moreno, on Halloween night 2007 when he threw an egg that struck their patrol car.
Moreno, who is black, said the officers, who are white, threw him in the back of their car and uttered racial slurs as they drove him to a remote area in Bloomfield.
He said they then took his clothes, told him to lie face down in the dirt until they returned and drove off, leaving him there.
The officers were charged with unlawful imprisonment and endangering the welfare of a child, but were allowed to plead guilty to disorderly conduct yesterday as jury selection was set to begin in Staten Island Supreme Court.