OFFICER'S TESTIMONY SUPPORTS ABUSE ACCUSATION

At first, Officer Kevin Maloney kept it all to himself.

During an arrest in a Brooklyn subway station on Oct. 15, 2008, he
watched a fellow officer jab a baton between the buttocks of a
suspect, and he thought he heard the man moan, Officer Maloney
testified on Monday. He listened as the suspect, a body piercer named
Michael Mineo who had been seen smoking marijuana outside the
station, complained that someone had shoved a walkie-talkie inside
him. Later, he saw blood on Mr. Mineo's hand.

But Officer Maloney did not call an ambulance or tell a supervisor or
question any of his colleagues about why they released Mr. Mineo --
whom they had chased through the streets and forcibly subdued on the
subway platform -- with a summons for disorderly conduct. The episode
was only briefly noted in his memo book.

It was days later that Officer Maloney, then a 26-year-old assigned
to transit duty and still on workplace probation, decided to speak up
about what he had seen, breaking the wall of silence that has stymied
investigations into police misconduct.

"I came forward because the investigation was focused on someone
else," he said in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, "and it shouldn't
be." The weight of that decision seemed to make his voice crack on the stand.

Officer Maloney is perhaps the most important prosecution witness
against the three officers on trial, and one by one, he was asked to
identify them: Richard Kern, charged with aggravated sexual abuse,
and Alex Cruz and Andrew Morales, who are accused of helping cover up
Officer Kern's actions.

His testimony, on the trial's seventh day, was critical to the
prosecution's case because it corroborated crucial aspects of Mr.
Mineo's account about what happened that day at the Prospect Park
subway station. During his own time on the stand last week, Mr. Mineo
was treated harshly by defense lawyers, who called attention to his
criminal record, his inconsistent statements and even his many tattoos.

When asked why he did not speak out right away, Officer Maloney
testified that he did not think he had seen any misconduct.

"It did not register with you that Police Officer Kern had done
anything inappropriate?" asked John D. Patten, Officer Kern's lawyer.
Officer Maloney said that was correct.

He spent more than two tense hours on the witness stand, looking out
at the accused officers and, behind them, a row of police union
delegates. He sipped at water. His gaze swung from the jurors to the
defendants. He drank more water.

But if nerves made his voice waver, he never stammered, and he seemed
sure of his short answers: "Yes, sir" or "correct."

Officer Maloney, who is single and lives on Long Island with his
family, explained that he had been on the force for 22 months before
he crossed paths with Mr. Mineo. He was still green: Just that
morning, he had been disciplined for standing on the wrong subway platform.

Before graduating from the Police Academy in 2007, Mr. Maloney had
worked in sales and as an umpire. Assigned to the Transit Bureau, he
first roamed Brooklyn, then was given assignments in Coney Island,
Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant. That October day, he was
assigned to the B and Q lines. At 1:15 p.m., about two and a half
hours before the end of his shift, he was standing on the Q line's
southbound platform at the Prospect Park station when he said he saw
two officers chasing a man down the stairs.

The man -- Mr. Mineo -- doubled back toward the entrance, and Officer
Maloney said he bounded up the stairs to cut him off. Another
officer, Noel Jugraj, got to Mr. Mineo first and wrestled him to the ground.

Face down, surrounded by officers, "Michael Mineo is squirming,"
Officer Maloney said.

He testified that while he knelt on Mr. Mineo's right side, Officer
Jugraj was in front of him by Mr. Mineo's head and Officer Kern
straddled the suspect's legs. At that point in his testimony, Officer
Maloney paused and took a sharp breath.

"I see Richard Kern has a metal retractable baton, known as the Asp,
out," Officer Maloney said. "I saw Officer Richard Kern have it
placed on Michael Mineo's buttocks." Officer Maloney demonstrated how
Officer Kern held the baton, which is about eight inches long and
partly covered in foam.

Officer Kern pressed the baton to Mr. Mineo's left buttock, Officer
Maloney said, and moved it "from left to right." Then he applied
pressure. A prosecutor, Charles Guria, asked how Officer Maloney
could tell, and he replied that he saw "indentation in Michael
Mineo's clothing." He was wearing boxers.

A half inch to an inch of the baton disappeared from his sight, he
said, as it was pressed into "Mineo's butt crack."

After Mr. Mineo was handcuffed and helped upright by the officers, he
asked, "Why did you stick that walkie-talkie up my ass?" Officer
Maloney testified. Soon afterward, he said, Officer Kern described
Mr. Mineo as an "E.D.P.," police shorthand for an emotionally disturbed person.

At that point in the story, Officer Maloney's account diverged from
that of other witnesses. His testimony may have helped Officer Cruz:
Office Maloney said he never heard him say "you liked it," as both
Mr. Mineo and Officer Jugraj have alleged. Mr. Mineo testified that
Officer Kern repeatedly rammed him with the baton, but under
cross-examination from Mr. Patten, Officer Maloney said he did not see that.

But Officer Maloney said he did see Mr. Mineo show the officers his
hands after they placed him in a patrol car. "There is blood on it,"
Officer Maloney said.

Mr. Mineo said he was bleeding. In response, Officer Jugraj closed
the car door.

When Mr. Mineo was given a summons rather than taken into custody, he
was surprised, Officer Maloney said.

He did not challenge Officer Kern about what he had done, Officer
Maloney said, because "I did not know him."

But after hearing about the investigation into Mr. Mineo's
allegations in news reports, Officer Maloney said he was worried that
Mr. Cruz was being wrongly accused of abuse, and he contacted his
union delegate. He waived his immunity when he testified before a
grand jury, he said, and has since been transferred.

His lawyer, Paul P. Martin, said his client was "relieved" after
testifying. Asked whether speaking out had made Officer Maloney's
life at work more difficult, Mr. Martin said, "His hope and his
belief is that by coming forward and just testifying there would be
no reason for anyone to retaliate."