Cop's Beating Of 85lb NYC Man Leads To Federal Lawsuit

NEW YORK — A chronically ill Staten Island man whom an NYPD cop punched and electrocuted last year is seeking restitution for the caught-on-camera attack.

William Colon sued New York City in Brooklyn federal court last month over his violent Sept. 28, 2018 arrest at the hands of Officer Vincenzo Trabolse, who has a history of alleged abuse.

Video footage of the incident showed Trabolse beating Colon — who suffers from several health problems and weighs just 85 pounds — and shocking him with a stun gun while cops held him down on a bed in his Cottage Lane home.

The ordeal put Colon in the hospital for several days and left him with myriad injuries as well as emotional distress, says his Sept. 20 court complaint seeking unspecified damages.

"While no amount of money will make up for what William suffered, we hope the City does right by William for that brutal arrest which could have been fatal," said Chris Pisciotta, the attorney-in-charge of the Staten Island trial office at the Legal Aid Society, which represented Colon in the criminal case stemming from his arrest.

Staten Island prosecutors ultimately dropped the criminal charges against Colon after reviewing the evidence in the case.

But he still had to spend five days shackled to a bed in a hospital where he was treated for diabetic ketoacidosis, a life-threatening condition in people with diabetes, his complaint says. Colon also lives with scoliosis, asthma, mental health problems and Mauriac syndrome, a rare diabetes complication that causes dwarfism, his lawyers say.

Police came to Colon's home after a neighbor called 911 about an argument between him and his ex-girlfriend, Colon's lawyers have said. Trabolse and other cops entered his house without a warrant, attacked him on his bed and dragged him out of the house in nothing but sweatpants, according to his complaint.

Colon "was not a threat to the defendants, himself or anyone else, and was pinned down in a position of total subservience, with his hands open and his palms up," the lawsuit reads.

The police also falsely accused Colon of "flailing his arms and body" to underpin charges of resisting arrest and obstructing governmental administration — even though he briefly lost consciousness during the ordeal, the complaint alleges.

The NYPD has kept Trabolse on the force despite advocates' calls for his firing. He has been sued at least four times since 2009 for his involvement in alleged beatings and false arrests, court records show.

Spokespeople for the NYPD and the city's Law Department said they would review the lawsuit.