The Associated Press
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- A former Orange officer was sentenced Thursday to 33 months in prison in a police brutality incident that led to the death of a man mistakenly arrested in the hunt for a cop killer.
Three more former officers were to be sentenced Thursday, with a fifth former officer scheduled for sentencing on Friday.
Federal prosecutors sought terms of 10 years or more, but lost a presentence argument on Wednesday when U.S. District Judge John C. Lifland ruled that the officers did not plot to assault Earl Faison.
Paul Carpinteri Jr. was sentenced to 33 months in prison, the low end of a range that Lifland determined went to 41 months, said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Lifland declined to impose a fine, determining that Carpinteri could not afford to pay. The former officer remains free on $100,000 bond and is to report to prison within two months.
Faison, 27, an aspiring rapper from East Orange, was arrested April 11, 1999, during the search for the killer of Orange police officer Joyce Carnegie, who had been shot several days earlier.
Authorities said several officers beat and kicked Faison and that one, Brian Smith, twice blasted pepper spray at him. Brian Smith is to be sentenced Friday.
The officers were charged with violating Faison’s civil rights, not with causing his death, which medical experts attributed to an asthma attack.
In December 2000, the officers were each convicted of one count of conspiring to deprive Faison of his civil rights by striking him after he was handcuffed or trying to conceal the assault.
Lifland had presided over the trial, and in May 2001 he overturned part of the jury verdict.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark appealed the dismissal, arguing that the five officers didn’t have to make a plan in advance to be guilty of conspiring to deprive a suspect of his civil rights.
An appeals panel reinstated the guilty verdicts on the conspiracy convictions in June 2002, sending the case back to Lifland for sentencing.
In the Carnegie case, Condell Woodson later pleaded guilty to killing her. His efforts to retract the plea failed, and he is now serving a life sentence.