An ex-cop standing trial on charges that he had revived his youthful graffiti-vandal compulsion was walking with a limp and appeared to be incapable of the dexterity required for the avocation, the arresting officer testified yesterday.
Steven Weinberg admits that he once was the infamous “Neo” who, during the height of the city’s 1980s graffiti scourge, “bombed” trains and trestles with his bubble-lettered signature.
But his lawyer, Patrick Broderick, said Weinberg, with an injured leg, couldn’t possibly make the climb required recently to spray-paint his tag on an overpass.
That did not stop Officer Anthony Navarro from arresting Weinberg at the suspect’s home in Flushing, Queens, last year.
“I realized he had a limp when he was walking toward me,” Navarro testified at Weinberg’s bench trial in Queens Supreme Court.
Navarro, a Transit Bureau officer, said Weinberg became the main suspect after giving a lengthy interview to an underground graffiti Web site and identified himself as a cop and “a cripple.”
Weinberg’s career ended when, as a patrolman hunting for victims’ remains in a homicide investigation, he tripped over a fence, seriously damaging the nerves in his leg, Broderick said.
Weinberg, who left the job in May 2001 on a disability pension of $38,000 a year, limped into court yesterday using a cane.
Navarro said that when he showed Weinberg a picture of a recent tagging, the former street legend recognized his handiwork.
“That’s my tag,” Weinberg said, according to Navarro. “I’m Neo.”
But Broderick said Weinberg’s boast was hardly a confession, insisting his client was the victim of a copycat.