Pubdate: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 Source: New York Times (NY) Copyright: 2000 The New York Times Company Contact: 229 West 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036 Fax: (212) 556-3622 Website: http://www.nytimes.com/ Forum: http://forums.nytimes.com/comment/ Author: Benjamin Weiser $3 MILLION AWARD IN POLICE BRUTALITY CASE A federal jury awarded $3 million yesterday to a Bronx woman who said she had been beaten by an undercover New York City police officer when she was mistakenly arrested in a drug case in 1998. The woman, Irma Morales, 51, was released a short time after her arrest, when another police officer pointed out the mistake, testimony showed. The officer accused in the beating, Detective Anthony P. Leone, who remains on full duty, was exonerated by the Civilian Complaint Review Board after an investigation, lawyers for the city said. The city, which had argued that Ms. Morales's allegations were without merit, said it would appeal the verdict, in part because the judge refused to allow the jury to hear of the detective's exoneration by the review board. "There is no evidence whatsoever that the injuries the plaintiff complained of were committed" by the officer, said Lorna B. Goodman, a senior lawyer in the corporation counsel's office. The verdict yesterday in Federal District Court in Manhattan came after a three-day trial in which the jury was shown graphic color photographs of bruises on Ms. Morales's arms and legs. The injuries, she said, resulted from a confrontation with Detective Leone near her home in the Bronx on Sept. 29, 1998. Ms. Morales testified that she had been walking to a bus near East 183rd Street and Prospect Avenue to go to the dentist that morning, when a man grabbed her, dragged her to an unmarked car and forced her in. The man, she said she later learned, was Detective Leone. But he did not identify himself at the time, she said, and she resisted, not realizing that he was a police officer. "I started to struggle with him because I wanted him to let me go," Ms. Morales testified, speaking through a Spanish translator. "He grabbed me harder, and I started to scream because I was very scared, scared of being kidnapped or hurt." "I thought my world was coming to an end," she added. "I didn't know what he wanted with me." Detective Leone, a veteran of more than 15 years on the force, defended his actions in his testimony. He told the jury that he had acted appropriately, identifying himself to Ms. Morales and treating her as he would any suspect. He said he was part of a team of officers arresting suspects whose descriptions were being radioed from another officer who was making undercover drug purchases. Ms. Morales was stopped, the detective said, because she matched a description of a woman involved in a drug deal. Detective Leone denied that her injuries could have been a result of their encounter. "I did not exert any sort of force that would incur any of that bruising," he testified. Ms. Morales had no comment as she left the courtroom, but her lawyer, Jonathan S. Abady, praised the verdict and criticized the department for failing to discipline Detective Leone. "The city and the Police Department are out of step with the public's moral sensibility with respect to police misconduct," Mr. Abady said. He said that the jury of four men and four women "represented a fair cross-section of the community," and that "they were outraged at both the injury inflicted and the indifference and arrogance of the police." The jury, which began deliberations Wednesday, told Judge Denise L. Cote that it was apportioning the bulk of its award, or $2.75 million, to Ms. Morales for her claim of excessive force by Detective Leone. The rest, $250,000, would go for her claim of false arrest. The jury made an additional award of $7,500 in punitive damages against Detective Leone. He had no comment outside court. - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk