ATTORNEYS: OFFICER TESTIMONY IN SODOMY CASE SHOULD LEAD TO INDICTMENT

The testimony of a transit officer who said he saw city police
officers beat and sodomize a Brooklyn man on a subway platform should
be enough to indict the city officers, the alleged victim's attorneys
said yesterday.

If transit Officer Kevin Maloney's grand jury testimony is true, the
"burden has been met," attorney Stephen Jackson said.

Jackson made the comments as he and attorney Kevin Mosley accompanied
Michael Mineo to the Rev. Al Sharpton's weekly National Action
Network gathering in Harlem. Mineo and the lawyers came to the event
to thank Sharpton and the community for their support.

Asked about Maloney's testimony, Mineo, 24, said he was "thankful he
came out and said what he said."

He called Maloney "another voice" to corroborate what he says
happened Oct. 15.

"I want the officers put away. That's that," Mineo said."They don't
deserve to be on the street."

Maloney told the grand jury last week that Officer Richard Kern poked
Mineo in the buttocks and that he used a baton, not a radio,
according to two sources briefed on the case. Maloney, an officer of
two years, is not under investigation.

The grand jury is likely to take two weeks to decide whether to
indict the four 71st Precinct officers who have been accused: Kern,
Alex Cruz, Noel Jugraj and Andrew Morales.

Police officials have said Mineo was smoking marijuana outside the
Prospect Park station and fled inside when officers approached. He
was caught and issued a summons for disorderly conduct after eating
the marijuana cigarette, police said. Mineo claims he was assaulted
and that a police officer sodomized him with a radio.

Mineo and his attorneys reached out to Sharpton after the incident,
and Sharpton visited Mineo while he was hospitalized.

Yesterday, Sharpton said Mineo didn't try to "sugarcoat" the details
of the incident: The activist minister said that in addition to
accusing police of brutality, Mineo admitted that he was smoking
marijuana, ran from police and swallowed the joint.

"I don't know what happened, but I do know that he deserves a fair
and untarnished investigation," Sharpton said.

Sharpton called the incident another in a long line of occurrences
involving police brutality, citing the cases of Sean Bell and Abner
Louima in New York City and Rodney King in Los Angeles.

He said he plans to bring the issue of police brutality to the
attention of the attorney general appointed by President-elect Barack
Obama so it can be "solved once and for all."