Transit cop may tell all in sodomy claim

The New York Daily News by SCOTT SHIFREL AND ALISON GENDAR - October 30, 2008

An NYPD transit cop looks to be breaking ranks by offering to tell what he saw the afternoon a Brooklyn man said cops sodomized him on a subway platform, sources said. The transit cop's account of what happened "is bad" for the other three officers accused by Michael Mineo of sodomizing him with a radio antenna on a Brooklyn subway platform Oct. 15, two sources said. "He's not coming forward to say nothing happened," a source said. The transit cop's lawyer is talking with the Brooklyn district attorney's office about his client coming forward to give his version of events. "He doesn't want to go down on this," the source said. Three patrol cops from Brooklyn's 71st Precinct chased Mineo after supposedly seeing him smoking a marijuana cigarette. The transit cop arrived as Mineo was arrested, sources said. Mineo, 24, was issued a summons for disorderly conduct and released. As the Daily News reported Thursday, the transit officer had gone to his NYPD commanding officer after returning from vacation to explain what he saw. A union representative intervened, arguing the officer should not speak to anyone without a lawyer, sources said. The officer had shared highlights of what he saw with at least one friend, sources said. Calls to the officers' lawyers were not returned Thursday. Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes called a grand jury to investigate the incident based on Mineo's medical records and the divergent witness accounts. Mineo met with Hynes' staff Thursday to prepare his grand jury testimony, but cut the session short because of intense pain, his lawyers said. Mineo was hospitalized four days after the incident, and released Tuesday after another, five-day stint in the hospital. All officers remain on full duty. agendar@nydailynews.com