IT WAS like listening to a symphony composed by angels.
“Thank God for you. You made the difference. You carried the ball,” former Police Lt. Patricia Feerick told me. “In 10 years’ time I will let my boys John and Joe read your stories and I won’t have to say much else.”
At 3:45 p.m. yesterday, Patricia Feerick crossed the Rikers Island bridge from the Rose Sanger building, breathed fresh air and told us that justice, while sometimes ailing, is far from a corpse.
I joined the fray of the outrage that happened upon Lt. Feerick and three other superb cops in the last 10 seconds of the 12th round.
Yesterday, Patricia Feerick was greeted by her ecstatic husband, Joe, Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari, and Lieutenants Benevolent Association boss Tony Garvey, and immediately the truth was self-evident.
My columns were a vehicle for men and women, most notably Guy and Tony, who have been battling against this most putrid example of judge, district attorney and cockeyed justice that has been perpetrated on this city for the past nine years.
They all came close yesterday to reversing the evil that happened in the court of Judge Bonnie “Brain Dead” Wittner that started way back in 1990.
And they are the real heroes. But a judge is not.
“She is a disgrace,” Patricia said. “She is a criminal’s best friend.”
That is not an over-the-top statement considering that Wittner:
*Has an aversion to arrests made by the cops’ “cold-case squad.”
*Screwed up a sentencing of a bad-guy felon caught with an illegal gun.
*Was named by this newspaper as one of the 10 worst judges in New York City.
*Asked District Attorney Robert Morgenthau to try to kill that story.
This is the same judge who happily accepted the story of a notorious drug dealer named Ben Stokes and a host of other crackheads to convict Feerick and Officers Orlando Rosario, John DeVito and Myra Shultz of an illegal search while they were looking for a stolen police radio in Taino Towers in East Harlem.
Stokes not only committed perjury but boasted that he was a lieutenant in the notorious “Purple City Gang,” responsible for at least seven homicides.
Calls to Bonnie Wittner received no answer. Perhaps she had the same illness as the last time I sat in her court and she didn’t appear all morning.
Molinari and Garvey were reflecting on how they got 30,000 signatures on a petition to free Patricia, who gave birth to her second son only five weeks before her incarceration.
“These men are real heroes, but right now believe me, the cheeks of my children John [age 4] and Joey [12 weeks old] are going to be red from my kissing them and maybe my husband Joe might have some bruised lips too.”
For nine years, Guy Molinari and Tony Garvey have been shaking their fists in rage and somehow no one listened.
Feerick not only lost her job as a cop, she lost her license as a registered nurse and her license as a lawyer.
“The Bar Association seems to be very reasonable and there’s a strong chance I’ll get my license back,” she said. “While I have profound respect for the profession of law, I wouldn’t give it a second thought if I could get back my job as a cop.”
But there is more. Can you believe that Wittner OK’d damages demanded by crackheads and dealers for Patricia Feerick to pay a total of $3,600, which included interest. They claimed cops wrecked their rodent-infested apartments in a search.
Feerick lawyer Mark Baker said: “I have never seen a case where the court or the district attorney embraced the needs of crack addicts with such zealotry over a case that should never have been in court in the first place.”
Feerick said: “If Rudy Giuliani is going to be the next senator, how about Guy Molinari for mayor?”
Now that’s a heck of an idea.