Michael Mineo’s Day In Court: Fingering the Cops He Says Repeatedly Rammed a Baton Up His Ass

Michael Mineo might have a hard time convincing a jury that, in October 2008, after running from police into a New York City subway station, one officer penetrated his rectum with a baton, while two other tried covering up the scandal. That’s because Mineo sports an arrest record, gang membership, heavy tattoos, and what the cops’ defense attorneys are trying to paint as misleading statements to Internal Affairs about the event. But Mineo, who is also suing the city in a civil suit for hundreds of millions of dollars, insists: “I felt it penetrating me. Something I have never felt before.”

We’ve been following Mineo’s alleged brutal assault, and lawsuit, for a year and a half now. There’s nothing particularly “gay” about it; we understand Mineo is straight. But he does accuse the officers of screaming homophobic slurs at him during the assault. (“You liked it [fag],” Mineo says one officer said to him as they escorted him out of the subway station in handcuffs after the attack.) And the assault, which Mineo took the stand to tell jurors he was “not making this up. What happened to me, happened to me,” absolutely reeks of the type of rape violence that all too often accompanies man-on-man assaults, whether in domestic abuse or a gay bashings.

The sexual assault trial continues this week. The defense, it must be said, did well on cross-examining Mineo, who doesn’t make the most sympathetic victim. Except if Mineo’s harrowing story is true, and the police officers are found guilty by the jury, it’s going to go a long way in accelerating his civil case against the city and the police department. Who might be quick to settle upon a conviction.

(Photo: NYT)