NYPD Detectives Charged With Assaulting Postal Worker Who Accidently Gave Directions To Cop Killer

Two NYPD detectives face prison time for beating up a postal worker who unwittingly gave an assassin directions to a Brooklyn housing project where the maniac killed two police officers, officials said Wednesday. Queens District Attorney Richard Brown charged Detectives Angelo Pampena, 31,and Detective Robert A. Carbone, 29, with assault. Pampena and Carbone are accused of beating 26-year-old Karim Baker on 96^th St. between Christie and 55^th Aves. in Corona, Queens on Oct. 21, 2015. They allegedly punched and kicked him inside his car and then pulled him out and continued to beat him. Baker was in his postal uniform at the time, officials said.

The bru­tal­ized let­ter car­ri­er had to relive the haunt­ing ordeal when he recent­ly tes­ti­fied before the grand jury. “It was very dif­fi­cult … from the very begin­ning,” Baker said about his grand jury tes­ti­mo­ny. “It was like I was reliv­ing the moment. Just sit­ting there and going through it all over again was def­i­nite­ly hard for me.”

Yet he could see the grand jury shar­ing his pain. “Based on their reac­tions I knew they were going to get indict­ed,” Baker said. The entire attack was caught on video, which was also shown to the grand jury, accord­ing to Baker’s attor­ney Eric Subin. “There’s no room for inter­pre­ta­tion,” Subin said about the video. “There is no expla­na­tion for what they did. It’s bone chill­ing.” Baker suf­fered “seri­ous phys­i­cal injuries,” under­went surgery for a knee injury and may need surgery on his spine, Subin said. He has yet to return to work at the post office. As the assault, which was first report­ed by the Daily News, was inves­ti­gat­ed, Pampena alleged­ly filed a false affi­davit claim­ing that the fight broke out after Baker’s car was found parked in front of a hydrant.

Yet the sur­veil­lance video shows he was parked legal­ly, offi­cials said. Baker’s car was at least one car length from the hydrant, Subin said.

Bruising is seen on Karim Baker’s after he was allegedly beaten by NYPD officers.

“I’m cer­tain­ly not sur­prised, though it’s not easy to get police offi­cers indict­ed for any­thing… even though the evi­dence is crys­tal clear,” Subin said about the arrests. “The grand jury obvi­ous­ly saw that video and heard that he was sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed for ten or eleven months. They beat the hell out of him.” Pampena was addi­tion­al­ly charged with per­jury, fil­ing a false instru­ment and offi­cial mis­con­duct for mak­ing up the lie, offi­cials said. The Queens DA’s office request­ed $10,000 bail, but the two detec­tives were ordered released with­out bail after a brief court appear­ance on Wednesday. The arraign­ment occurred min­utes after the Queens DA’s office sent out a press release announc­ing the charges against the two detec­tives. They will return to court to respond to the charges in June, accord­ing to a Queens DA spokeswoman.

Baker and his attor­ney claim that the postal employ­ee was repeat­ed­ly harassed by police after he unknow­ing­ly direct­ed Ismaaiyl Brinsley to the Marcy Houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant just before Brinsley shot and killed Detectives Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu on Dec. 20, 2014. For months after the assas­si­na­tion, Baker was stopped by police for traf­fic infrac­tions about 20 times — but nev­er tick­et­ed — before he was attacked by Pampena and Carbone, Baker said. Baker said he is still ter­ri­fied to inter­act with the police — and doesn’t know how to react when he sees a pass­ing NYPD squad car. “It’s not some­thing that can ever go away from me,” he said. “I went through a whole year of being stopped… repeat­ed­ly being stopped. If that can hap­pen I don’t know what to expect now.” “I just try to behave as nor­mal as I can (when I see police),” he said. A high-rank­ing police source said that Pampena and Carbone stopped Baker because they thought he was in the mid­dle of a drug trans­ac­tion. These guys had no clue who this guy was,” the source said.

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Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were shot and killed Dec. 20, 2014, by a mani­ac in Brooklyn — Baker unknow­ing­ly gave the killer direc­tions. After the mur­ders of Liu and Ramos, inves­ti­ga­tors learned that Baker, then a Fed Ex employ­ee, had been approached by Brinsley. Brinsley had asked Baker direc­tions to the Marcy hous­es, but didn’t make his inten­tions known. Earlier in the day, Brinsley had post­ed a pic­ture of a sil­ver Taurus semi­au­to­mat­ic pis­tol, writ­ing “I’m putting wings on pigs today.” Investigators look­ing to speak with Baker flagged his license plate in the NYPD’s com­put­er sys­tem, but nev­er delet­ed the alert after they had inter­viewed the Fed Ex employ­ee and cleared him of any wrong­do­ing, Subin said. Instead, when Baker got a sec­ond car, the license plate on that vehi­cle was also flagged, Subin said. Investigators ulti­mate­ly removed a flag on the first car, but not the sec­ond, and so he was stopped and ques­tioned repeat­ed­ly. Pampena and Carbone approached the let­ter car­ri­er believ­ing he was still want­ed for ques­tion­ing in the Liu and Ramos mur­ders, Subin said. Pampena is a nine-year vet­er­an of the NYPD. Carbone has been with the depart­ment for eight years. They each face up to sev­en years in prison if convicted.

Both have been sus­pend­ed for 30 days with­out pay, offi­cials said. No one answered the door at Carbone’s Levittown home Wednesday. Neighbors were shocked to hear of his arrest. “He seemed like a real­ly nice guy,” the neigh­bor said. The NYPD did not imme­di­ate­ly return a request for com­ment. http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/nypd-detectives-charged-assaulting-postal-worker-article‑1.2608423