'Assault On Officer' Charges Dropped After Video Proves NYPD & Prosecutors Lied

By Max Jaeger
The Brooklyn Paper
Feb. 19, 2015



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.

Police botched the criminal complaints against the Dazas and defendants Edwin Morales and Edwin Rosario by presenting the officer who signed a deposition against them as a witness to the events — even though he saw none of the actions he alleged — according to a Jan. 22 memo from the District Attorney’s Office.

Similarly, a document that an assistant district attorney filled out alleges that Daza had an altercation with the officer who gave the deposition the charges were based on, even though the two never interacted, the memo states.

A cellphone video of the scuffle proved the officer who accused Daza in the deposition was not a witness, Heinegg said.

The county dismissed charges against Daza. A grand jury declined to indict Wendy Daza, who was charged with assaulting a police officer, Heinegg said. Police later backpedaled, according to the Jan. 22 memo, claiming they meant to accuse Cindy Daza — not Wendy — of shoving an officer to the ground. Prosecutors told Heinegg they plan to drop charges against Wendy at her next court date in March, Heinegg said.

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