Disgraced ex-NYPD cop Justin Volpe committed “one of the most heinous crimes in New York City’s history” and should be denied early release from prison, the Brooklyn US attorney’s office said in a bid to keep him locked up for the broomstick sexual assault of Abner Louima in a station house bathroom.
Prosecutor Elizabeth Geddes strenuously opposed the fallen cop’s bid for compassionate release in court papers filed Monday.
On Aug. 9, 1997, in a sexual assault that stunned the nation, a uniformed Volpe beat Louima then used a broken broomstick handle to sodomize him, perforating his rectum and bladder inside the 70th Precinct.
In December, Volpe argued in court papers that he should be sprung early from FCI Beaumont in Texas on the grounds he had contracted and recovered from COVID-19 and now required special treatment to address the longterm effects of the virus.
In addition, he wrote that his sentence was based on guidelines that are no longer mandatory, and he may have been eligible for a lesser term.
He admitted in a handwritten letter to the judge that he had “committed a serious wrong and crime” but that now “it is my family who is being punished” — including his wife whom he married in 2012 while locked up.
Geddes countered that the risk from the pandemic and this “purely legal injury does not constitute an extraordinary and compelling reason for a sentence reduction.”
Further, she wrote, the gravity of the crime and his subsequent conduct do not warrant leniency.
“His actions were premeditated, brutal and brazen, evincing a clear belief that he was above the law and that his victims’ lives, quite simply, did not matter,” the filing says.
After the attack, Volpe threatened to kill Louima if he told anyone, then bragged to his fellow officers about the horrific assault.
Louima was targeted after Volpe mistakenly thought that he had hit him during a confrontation with police outside a Brooklyn nightclub.
The trial was halfway over when Volpe decided to plead guilty to battery and sexual abuse of Louima and the assault of another innocent man. The delay in accepting responsibility forced his victims to relive their trauma in court, Geddes wrote.
When Judge Eugene Nickerson sentenced Volpe in December 1998, he said, “Short of intentional murder, one cannot imagine a more barbarous misuse of power.”
Volpe has served 21 years and is eligible for release Jan. 9, 2025, according to prison records.
