Sloshed off-duty cop Michael Pena was arraigned on rape charges this afternoon for allegedly brutalizing a young woman in Inwood.
The boozed-up brute forced a 25-year-old woman to the back of an Inwood apartment building with his service weapon before he savagely raped her, prosecutors said.
A judge set bail $500,000 or a $1 million bond.
Pena’s attorney depicted the defendant as a 27-year-old guy with a clean record who attended Humanities HS in Manhattan.
“If these allegations are true, I believe it is a complete aberration,” said defense lawyer Juan A. Campos.
“I’m not saying alcohol excuses this if that’s true, but it may explain certain behavior,” the lawyer added.
Campos said Pena was “very soft spoken” and that his family and fiancee said they has never experienced domestic violence.
That contrasted sharply with the monster witnesses saw hulking over the teacher on West Park Terrace and 217th St., who he nabbed as she commuted to work at a Bronx school at 6:30 a.m. Friday.
He first asked the teacher for directions to the one train before locking her in a grip.
“You’re coming with me!” he snapped.
Eyewitnesses said they desperately phoned 911 and even tried to yell to scare him off.
“I’m almost done,” the beast barked.
After allegedly violating the woman, she warned responding cops that he was armed.
“He raped me! Be careful! He has a gun!,” she shrieked.
Cops later found his badge stuffed inside his pocket and collected his service weapon from the scene. Prosecutors also said that Pena tossed a cell phone, Campos said.
His anguished family, who filled a Manhattan courtroom today, said that this was out of character for the man they knew, who just got engaged a few months ago.
“This is a person with a lot of moral value and a family,” said relative Ramona, who declined to give her last name. “We are in shock like everyone else.”
“We are devastated at this point,” she added. “He was very proud to be a police officer.”
Pena, who was assigned to Manhattan’s 33rd Precinct, did not have a stellar reputation on the force.
“He never distinguished himself,” a source said. “He’s been mediocre at best.”
The defense lawyer Campos cautioned that the the reputations of recently acquitted Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata shouldn’t sully the defendant, noting “My client is a separate individual.”
cgiove@nypost.com