Accused cop killer Lamont Pride exposed his cohort by blurting out his name upon spotting him in a station house after gunning down Brooklyn cop Peter Figoski in 2011, police say.
“Yo, that’s Nels,” Pride said of Nelson Morales — who was pretending to be a victim of the botched robbery that led to the death of Figoski, Detective Albert Arredondo testified yesterday.
At the time, investigators were still trying to sort out who Morales and a third alleged accomplice were.
“We were trying to keep them separated,” a police source said, “but the accidental bump-in worked out pretty well.”
Pride, 28, faces first-degree murder charges in his week-old Brooklyn Supreme Court trial. If convicted, he could get life in prison.
When Arredondo got Pride into the interrogation room, the thug spun a tall tale, as seen in a video statement played in court by the prosecution.
He claimed that he and Morales had walked to the rundown East New York basement apartment to buy marijuana and that the gun went off as he wrestled it away from a phantom crook who had tackled him.
In a second video statement, he said that he helped Morales rob the drug dealer but that he shot Figoski by accident after the same phantom robber pushed him.
In a third statement, the one closest to the prosecutors’ version, he admitted driving to the apartment with Morales and three other men to rob the dealer.
“He sells bud [pot]. He got money. We can get him. It’ll be easy,” Pride said in the third video — adding that he shot Figoski, a father of four girls, by accident while trying to escape.
“I never took my hand off the trigger. That was my mistake,” he lamented.
Asked why he was finally telling the truth, he said, “I know I’m gonna do some time, but I’m not trying to do the max.”
The proceedings were delayed for more than an hour yesterday because Pride, a diabetic, did not receive his insulin shot at Rikers Island, Judge Alan Marrus said.
The trial is to resume Monday. Prosecutors expect to finish by Tuesday.