Rape? What rape?
A drunken off-duty cop claimed he was just “cheating” on his fiancée when he was caught with a terrified young schoolteacher in an Inwood alleyway last month.
“I wanted to call my girlfriend, but how am I going to call her when I got arrested for cheating with another girl?” Michael Pena told a sergeant after he was busted, according to police reports read in court yesterday.
Pena, 27 — a three-year cop who worked out of the 33rd Precinct — didn’t like being in custody very much, according to statements released yesterday, as he sat cuffed in an orange prisoner jumpsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court and pleaded not guilty to a 10-count rape and assault indictment.
Once under arrest, he complained about his cuffs being too tight and said he felt “dizzy.” He worried aloud about his car getting impounded and asked if there was any way his case could be “fast-tracked,” the statements released yesterday state.
Officials say the 25-year-old victim was on her way to work as a Bronx schoolteacher at just after 6 a.m. on Aug. 19 when the drunken Pena asked her for directions to the train, according to the charges.
He “displayed a firearm” and took her to a driveway between two buildings, then “forced her to perform the acts described in the indictment,” Assistant DA Evan Krutoy said in court yesterday.
“You’re coming with me,” authorities say Pena demanded as he locked her in his grip.
Eyewitnesses told cops they phoned 911 and tried to yell to scare him off, only to hear him bark, “I’m almost done.”
“He raped me! Be careful! He has a gun!” the woman cried as Pena was surrounded and arrested.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Richard Carruthers kept Pena ’s bail at $1 million bond or $500,000 cash. Pena’s family members, who filled three rows of the courtroom, have been unable to afford the bail, said his lawyer, Ephraim Savitt.
He’s having a “difficult” time in jail, Savitt said yesterday.
“It’s a very difficult situation for a police officer to be in an orange jumpsuit coming out of Rikers Island,” Savitt said. Inmates tend to be not too fond of cops, “whether they wear a blue uniform or an orange uniform,” he said.
The charges have been a “shock” to Pena’s close-knit family members, who are standing behind him, the lawyer said. That includes the fiancée, the lawyer added.
“Certainly, the engagement is still on track,” he said. “They were engaged to be married in the next couple weeks,” he said, noting that those plans are on hold now that Pena is in jail