Officer Alain Schaberger (
)
So long, punk.
An ex-con could be caged for the rest of his life after a jury today convicted him of shoving a veteran cop to his death from the top of a Brooklyn brownstone’s stoop.
Officer Alain Schaberger plunged head-over-heels and his neck snapped when he was pushed down the outdoor stairs in March 2011 while trying to slap handcuffs on George Villanueva for roughing up his girlfriend.
“It’s not that we’re happy, but there is a sense of righteousness,” the dead cop’s dad, Paul Schaberger, said outside the courtroom after the verdict was announced. “There is going to be payment for this act.”
Villanueva, who has at least six prior convictions, beat the top count of intentional murder but is is facing more than 30 years in prison for the manslaughter conviction when he is sentenced next month.
The verdict set off a wild courtroom scene, with Villanueva telling his relatives “I love you” and his mother screaming “El es inocente, no fue el!” – or “He is innocent, it wasn’t him” – while she curled up beneath a courtroom bench for several minutes.
“Mi corazon!” wailed Josefa Villanueva, who eventually had to be led out of the courthouse in a wheelchair and oxygen mask.
The frenzied reaction in a courtroom packed with cops tore at Schaberger’s mom, May, who wore a necklace with a small police officer’s shield around her neck.
“He still can see his mom,” she said, tearing up as she held on to her husband. “But for my son, I don’t know if I die, I see him on the other side or not.”
Schaberger and his partner, Officer Celmira Velazquez, had tracked Villanueva to his family’s St. Mark’s Place brownstone after the ex-con’s girlfriend dialed 911 early on March 13, 2011, to complain that he had shown up at her apartment and threatened to kill her.
Prosecutors contended that Villanueva meant to kill Schaberger when he shoved the 10-year NYPD veteran over the stoop’s two-foot railing with both hands and into a concrete stairwell that led to a basement apartment.
“He was doing his job and what he expected of his job and life,” said Paul Schaberger, 64. “He wanted to be a New York City cop.”
Villanueva’s defense tried to pin the fatal spill on Schaberger’s fellow cops, saying he fell in the darkness during a chaotic scrum on the crowded stoop. Girlfriend Kim Dykstra – whose 911 call led to the fatal encounter – insisted “George didn’t push that cop” during her testimony.
But jurors weren’t buying it.
“The defense’s witnesses weren’t credible,” a male juror said. “Their stories were all mixed up.”
Villanueva’s conviction brought some relief to cops who filled the courtroom daily during the weeklong murder trial.
“We will make sure that he never sees the light of day,” PBA President Pat Lynch vowed.
Villanueva will be sentenced May 23 by Justice Neil Firetog.
“It’s been a long 13-and-a-half months to get to this point,” Paul Schaberger said. “We have a sense of justice, a sense of retribution.”
jose.martinez@nypost.com