From the Brooklyn Paper:
Prosecutors have dropped the charges against a Sunset Park fruit vendor who was arrested for assault and resisting arrest last fall after a cellphone video contradicted the police account, and proved that the officer who accused him couldn’t have witnessed the crimes he supposedly committed.
Police arrested Jonathan Daza on Sept. 14 following a dustup over his failure to move his fruit-stand once a street fair permit expired.
But a bystander’s cellphone video shows officer Vincent Ciardiello kicking Daza in the back while Daza was on the ground and restrained by other officers. The video got the officer into hot water with the department and helped exonerate Daza and two family members who were also arrested, the family’s attorney said.
“In November, the [assistant district attorney] on the case put in an affirmation swearing on facts that clearly hadn’t happened, because there’s a video of the thing,” said Rebecca Heinegg, who represented Daza and his two sisters.
Read the full story here.