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By Jack Nichols
Brooklyn, New York—A Lawyer explained in court Wednesday that two of five clients, New York police officers, were wrongly accused in 1997 of criminally torturing a captive arrestee, Abner Louima, by yanking down his trousers and driving the wooden handle of a broken broom stick into his rectum on the bathroom floor of the 70th Precinct station house, puncturing his intestine and damaging his bladder.
Attorney Marvyn Kornberg, representing the accused police, claims Mr. Louima's internal injuries were not due to any broom-stick attack but exist because he is gay and participates in consensual anal sex. The accused policemen, therefore, are also denying that they also drove the filthy stick into Mr. Louima's mouth, breaking his teeth.
Mr. Louima, who is scheduled next to testify against the alleged offenders, was immediately perceived in 1997 as having told the truth about the vicious attacks he'd reportedly sustained in their custody. Married and the father of children, Mr. Louima was observed earlier on the night he was tortured dancing with women in a Haitian night spot, Club Rendezvous in Flatbush, according to several friends including a band member present, all of who strongly deny that he is gay. Mayor Giuliani, quickly realizing his administration faced a public relations fiasco because of police misbehavior brewing as early as 1997, described Louima as "a very dignified and nice man." Bob Herbert, writing in The New York Times said that Mayor Giuliani had professed to be shocked by the attack. "Perhaps he was," mused Herbert, "But the only thing shocking to most close observers was the grotesque psychosexual nature of the assault." |
