The Manhattan DA is probing whether bullets fired in 2005 by men sitting in a pickup truck on loan to Giants receiver Plaxico Burress can be linked to guns recently seized from the Super Bowl star, sources said.
The district attorney’s inquiry was spurred by a Post story yesterday that revealed Burress’ Chevy Avalanche was seized by cops on the morning of Aug. 20, 2005, after men inside the pickup fired shots when it got stuck behind a garbage truck in The Bronx.
The driver and a passenger fled on foot when a cop car arrived, but officers nabbed the two other passengers. Cops also recovered at least one handgun that was tossed from the vehicle when the patrol car rolled up.
Burress – who later that day played his first home pre-season game for the Giants – weeks afterward told cops he was not in the truck during the shooting. Burress said he had loaned the vehicle to his cousin and was never charged.
Burress, 31, was arrested in November on an illegal-gun charge after accidentally shooting himself in the leg in a Manhattan nightclub. The receiver’s .40-caliber pistol was retrieved by cops the next day at his home in Totowa, NJ.
On Dec. 23, authorities raided his home, where they seized a weapons cache that included a 9 mm pistol, a rifle and ammo for three other guns – a .380, a .45 and a .40-caliber.
If Manhattan DA investigators can link ballistics evidence from the 2005 shooting to any of Burress’ guns, it could complicate his effort to remain out of jail over the Thanksgiving-weekend nightclub shooting, sources said.
Burress’ lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, yesterday said: “I am confident that Mr. Burress had nothing whatsoever to do with the incident in 2005 and nothing about that incident will in any way impact the case that is presently pending against Mr. Burress in Manhattan.”
The men arrested in the Bronx shooting – Laval Daniels, 33, and Calvin Ward, 31, who have prior rap sheets – had charges dropped months later.
Daniels served four years on assault and drug charges after stabbing another man in 1998, and has on his rap sheet a 2007 weapons arrest and a 2008 drug bust, records show. Ward has a lengthy rap sheet dating to 1998, including busts for assault, burglary, attempted robbery and drugs.
Meanwhile, a Lebanon, Pa., civil jury yesterday ruled that Burress – after he testified yesterday – owed the Pennsylvania auto dealer who loaned him the Chevy $1,705.38 for damage the pickup incurred while impounded by police after the shooting.
Additional reporting by Austin Fenner