A Brooklyn homeowner charged with racing his car toward a cop and making the officer jump out of the way to save his life was himself saved by a surveillance video that shows him calmly parking his car while the cop never budges.
John Hockenjos, 55, was charged last Sunday with first-degree reckless endangerment after Officer Diego Palacios swore that the MTA engineer created a “grave risk of death” by driving his sedan “at high rate of speed into a driveway towards” the officer, according to the criminal complaint.
Palacios also swore he “had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit” by the car, according to court papers.
The only problem with the case is a “crystal clear” surveillance video that shows Hockenjos slowly pulling into the driveway and Palacios standing still, said Craig Newman, Hockenjos’ lawyer.
Newman told Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Alexander Jeong that he gave a copy of the video to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office and would settle for nothing less than a dismissal of the case.
“In my 20 years of legal experience I’ve never seen a more crystal clear example of a false arrest,” Newman said outside court. “Officers like this should not be carrying a badge. They make every good cop look bad.”
The arrest stemmed from a longstanding dispute between Hockenjos, 55, and his neighbor Argo Paumere over who owns the driveway between their Sheepshead Bay houses.
Paumere apparently called the police while Hockenjos and his wife Irina were out grocery shopping.
The surveillance video, captured on a camera Hockenjos installed because of the ongoing row with Paumere, depicts Paumere talking to two officers and showing them the driveway.
Hoceknjos and his wife then pull into the driveway slowly and neither Paumere nor the officers budge as he parks the car and gets out, the video shows.
The criminal complaint says Hockenjos was yelling and screaming, telling Palacios to “get the f— out of my driveway.”
Hockenjos, visibly agitated on the tape, said outside court that he was asking the cop “why are you here, why are we discussing my driveway?”
”They just said ‘Put your hands behind you back’ and that’s it,” Hockenjos said.
He was charged with two counts of reckless endangerment and one count of reckless driving.
Hockenjos, who has no previous record, was held for three days on $3,500 bail because of the serious – though phony – allegations, Newman said.
After getting out of jail, Hockenjos and his wife Irina, who got a disorderly conduct summons off-camera, delivered a copy of the video to the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau, Newman said.
Jeong adjourned the case until August.
Additional reporting by Jamie Schram