A trip to the supermarket — to shoplift — became a half-million-dollar windfall for a crook, thanks to a Brooklyn jury.
Kevin Jarman sued the city for a broken ankle suffered while cops were arresting him at a Queens Pathmark in May 2011— even though he later pleaded guilty to the shoplifting.
On Wednesday, a jury stunned even the admitted thief, awarding him a $510,000 verdict for the broken ankle.
While it was the biggest, the windfall wasn’t Jarman’s first payout from the city. He sued the NYPD in 2005 for false arrest after a drug-sale rap was dropped. The city settled for $15,000.
Jarman, 50, took the cops to court again in November 2013 for false arrest on another drug rap that was dropped, and the city settled that case last month for $20,000.
“Some of these verdicts are just nuts,” said a law-enforcement source. “There’s no rhyme or reason to the figure they come up with. These guys are getting huge paydays, and for what? A broken ankle? Half a million? To a shoplifter? It’s getting out of control.”
In the shoplift case, Jarman claimed that 5-foot-5 Sgt. Samuel Morales approached him inside Pathmark after a store clerk reported a theft. The suit said the cop was intimidated by the 6-foot-2 Jarman.
Morales “appeared to be afraid of Plaintiff because of his size” before slapping on handcuffs but quickly turned nasty once he was safely shackled, said the suit.
Jarman told Morales to loosen the cuffs, but the cop yanked on them instead and caused the towering unemployed chef to tumble over, papers state.
The suit claimed that Jarman couldn’t steady himself because Morales had his boot purposefully holding his foot in place.
“Sergeant Morales, in effect, tripped Plaintiff,” the suit stated.
Morales and another officer named in the case, Alex Safran, laughed at his collapse and threatened to post footage of it on YouTube, according to the suit.
Jarman spent nine days in Jamaica Hospital.
It took jurors just a few hours to deliver Wednesday’s shocking windfall verdict.
“This shows that a regular person who has his rights violated can still go to court and do something,” Jarman’s lawyer, Anthony Ofodile, said of his client.
The perpetual plaintiff told The Post he was surprised only by the size of the jury’s mammoth award.
“I’m doing great,” he said.
“We are going to fight this verdict,” vowed senior city lawyer Muriel Goode-Trufant.