The NYPD cop charged with raping a Bronx school teacher at gunpoint was convicted of predatory sexual assault in a trial thrown into chaos by revelations that one juror is pals with Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance. I swear there is always something with these crooked cops. Click below to read the rest of the story.
Officer Michael Pena sat silently when the verdict was read but his 25-year-old accuser began sobbing inconsolably when the jury announced it still hadn’t reached a verdict on the four rape counts.
The fact that the jury convicted Pena of forcing her to submit to oral and anal sex — six charges that could send him to prison for life — appeared to be little comfort to her.
Rather than settling for a partial verdict, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Richard Carruthers told the bitterly divided jury to resume deliberating.
“Please be respectful to one another,†he said.
Newly unmasked Vance pal Lloyd Constantine was told to join the seven other men and four women debating the 27-year-old officer’s fate.
But Carruthers allowed the alternate jurors to go home — and they wasted no time escaping the courthouse.
“It was a difficult process, it was trying,†said Pat Lee as she rushed out.
“It’s a relief,†added another female alternate, as she hopped into a cab.
The dramatic developments came after prosecutors suddenly realized that Constantine, a prominent lawyer who was once an adviser to disgraced former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, was juror No. 2.
That discovery was all the more stunning because Vance himself had attended the closing arguments in the trial and Constantine was clearly visible, sitting in the front row of the jury box.
It was not clear if Vance notified the DA’s working the case. But when called to explain why he did not disclose his connection to Vance during jury selection, Constantine arrogantly told
the judge he felt he wouldn’t be biased and that he’d passed his “own subjective test.â€
