The man at the center of a shocking police brutality trial testified Monday that he screamed and begged passersby for help after police officers allegedly sodomized him at a Brooklyn subway station.
Michael Mineo, 25, a former tattoo parlor receptionist and admitted Crips gang member, accused the officers of taunting him and trying to cover up the October 15, 2008 attack where he was allegedly violated with a police baton.
"I said, 'Did you stick something up my a--?'" Mineo recalled asking officer Alex Cruz, one of three cops on trial in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
"He replied, 'You liked it, you f-----t,'" Mineo testified.
Cruz and officer Andrew Morales are accused of covering up the attack while Officer Richard Kern is charged with the more serious crime of aggravated sexual abuse and assault. All three have pleaded not guilty.
Mineo testified that he did not see which one of the officers had sodomized him with a retractable baton after chasing him into the Prospect Park subway station.
The three defendants have pleaded not guilty.
Officer Richard Kern is charged with aggravated sexual abuse and assault. Officers Alex Cruz and Andrew Morales are charged with hindering prosecution and official misconduct.
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Mineo admitted running from police after swallowing a two inch marijuana cigar cops had seen him smoking.
While handcuffed behind his back and kept face down on the subway platform floor, Mineo testified, in graphic detail, that he was sodomized by "a hard object" causing him an intense, blinding pain.
Mineo said the officers downplayed his injury.
"I told them I was bleeding and they said 'No, you're not,'" Mineo testified during about an hour on the stand.
Raising his voice to demonstrate, Mineo said he tried to attract attention while kept in a police car outside the subway station.
"I was like, Help me! They stuck something in my a--! Help Me!"
He claimed the cops offered to let him go with just a summons if he promised not to go to a hospital or police precinct.
After being released, he said he spent six days being treated at Brookdale Hospital and then another five days at Brooklyn Hospital.
He admitted to being arrested "at least seven or eight times" before the October 2008 encounter for having marijuana and said he also had earlier busts for gang assault, identity theft and credit card fraud. He also said he's filed a $440 million lawsuit over the attack.
Under cross examination by defense attorney Stuart London, Mineo admitted wrongly assuming at first that officer Cruz had been the one brandishing the baton. Mineo also admitted to inconsistencies about the roles of other officers in accounts he gave to police investigators and the grand jury.
Reviewing Mineo's past arrests, London also got the alleged victim to admit that he had been a thief -- and still got high by smoking marijuana. But Mineo stayed firm in asserting that he had been sodomized, although he couldn't identify who had allegedly violated him.
"One of the cops who did it is sitting over there," he said.
