A violent convict who threatened to bolt from the Brooklyn federal courthouse if he didn’t win a civil suit against three NYPD cops didn’t have to move a muscle Tuesday after scoring a stunning $560,000 jury award.
Currently behind bars for attacking a Rikers Island correction officer in a separate case, Leroy Davis told federal marshals that he was going to make a run for it if jurors ruled against him in his wrongful-arrest claim against the three cops, sources said.
An unamused Judge Jack Weinstein sternly warned Davis — who has a long rap sheet, including gun and robbery busts — to behave himself when the jury rendered its verdict Tuesday afternoon.
With courtroom security beefed up because of the escape threat, jurors delivered their verdict against Officers Javier Velez, James Lukeson and Gary Calhoun as Davis looked on at his half-million-dollar triumph.
The officers claimed that they were on routine Brooklyn patrol in 2009 when they saw Davis drop a bag on the ground and heard it make a “metallic” sound. He was arrested after they allegedly found a 9mm pistol and bags of crack in the sack.
But Davis beat the federal case in 2010 after his lawyers argued that the gun was actually found during an illegal search of his home and that it didn’t belong to him.
Sprung from prison after serving 13 months, David was later busted in a larceny case and later charged with assaulting a Rikers correction officer.
Despite being jailed, Davis last year filed a federal civil case against the three cops for his 2009 arrest and demanded damages for civil-rights violations.
His attorney, James Neville, argued that the cops misrepresented the facts of the arrest and that his client deserved compensation.
After a three-day trial and four days of deliberation, the jury awarded Davis $54,000 in liability payments for each of the cops and a total of $418,000 in punitive damages.
The jurors were not informed of Davis’s prior crimes — or previous allegations of police misconduct against the officers, Neville told the Post.
“I’m glad Mr. Davis could get a measure of justice in this case,” Neville said