FREE John Clifford!
Along the Nassau- to-Penn Station corridor, Clifford is hailed and ridiculed as the Long Island Rail Road Enforcer – a guy known to scream at, curse, dump coffee on, or even slap riders who disturb the peace. Now, he may be going down.
“I’m definitely the victim here!” moaned Clifford, 59. “I have a right to be left alone.”
A retired cop, now a lawyer, Clifford became a legend after The Post reported on his years-long struggle to get fellow passengers to sit down, shut up and obey the railroad’s rules of civility.
But in a startling case of Your Tax Dollars at Work, Clifford, who was charged in March for slapping a business card from the hand of a woman, last week had a new rap slapped on him – attempted petit larceny.
“For trying to steal a business card!” he fumed. “Trying to steal something she had already handed away. I don’t see how you can do that!”
Why doesn’t the railroad just tell riders to button up? Oh, that would be hard.
The latest chapter began March 28, as Clifford took his a seat on the 8:02 a.m. train from Long Beach, in a spot where he might stretch out his 6-foot-4 frame. Nearby, a young man talked loudly on his cellphone to a girlfriend, a railroad no-no. Clifford got upset only after the guy started yammering to Girlfriend No. 2.
“I asked him to keep it down. The kid just ignored me. I started arguing with him, ‘Shut the f- – – up!’ I said, ‘F- – -ing faggot,’ or whatever.”
Suddenly, a woman shouted from the back of the train. “He’s a pain in the ass!” she said about Clifford. “He does this all the time.”
As Clifford tells it, “She comes over and tells the guy she’ll be a witness.” Then she pulled out her business card.
“I said, ‘Let me get your name, too.’ I reached for the card,” he said, “and she slaps it out of my hand.
“So I reacted to the slap. I slapped her back on the hand. I was arrested for first-degree assault.”
But last week, Clifford had the top charge dropped to attempted third-degree assault – a misdemeanor. He’s also charged with harassment and disorderly conduct. But the addition of attempted petit larceny has him howling.
Reached at home in Long Beach, Clifford’s “victim,” Lydia Klein, 52, told me, “You’re wasting your time because the guy’s pretty crazy.” She refused to comment further.
Clifford proudly told me about his eight arrests. Until now, the charges were always dropped after complainants failed to show up in court.
He never hits first – but always hits back. Once, he poured coffee on the head of a woman who dumped java on his shirt.
These days, Clifford isn’t seen much on the train. He was laid off in April as an investigator for HBO. So he wants a free, court-appointed lawyer to represent him.
Don’t back down, John. You go!