A drunken, off-duty cop charged with raping a teacher at gunpoint suggested after his arrest that the encounter was consensual, statements released Wednesday revealed. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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Michael Pena told cops he was afraid to call his girlfriend after he was arrested because he had been with another woman.

“I wanted to call my girlfriend, but how am I going to call her when I got arrested for cheating?” he asked officers following his arrest on Aug. 19.

Pena, 27, is charged with forcing the woman into a courtyard behind an Inwood building at gunpoint as she headed to work early that morning and raping her.

He was busted after terrified neighbors called cops after the woman’s screams woke them.

Pena, of Yonkers, told cops to check his back pocket for his NYPD badge as they arrested him. He then told them he had been drinking.

“Can I have water. I’m feeling dizzy,” he told cops at the 34th Precinct, according to statements entered into the court record Wednesday.

The documents were made public as the hulking Pena – a three-year NYPD veteran – was arraigned in Manhattan Supreme Court on an indictment of first degree rape, criminal sexual act and predatory sexual assault.

Pena, who appeared in court in a bright orange prison jumpsuit, pleaded not guilty. He has remained behind bars on $500,000 bail.

His lawyer, Ephraim Savitt, suggested that statements made by witnesses to cops may be contradictory and the case was far from a slam-dunk.

“It remains to be seen if it’s strike three for the DA’s office or a base hit,” Savitt said, referring to recent failed rape prosecutions by the Manhattan DA against two other cops and Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance said he was prepared to prosecute the case vigorously.

“The brazenness of the horrific attack charged by the grand jury is truly shocking,” he said. “It is all the more disturbing that the defendant in this case was a law enforcement officer.”
DN