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A Long Island jury just cleared four cops of alleged police brutality tied to a $9 million lawsuit involving a cancer patient’s broken arm.
Suffolk County Officers Charles Tramontana, Jesus Faya, Michael Sweet, and Argand Reyes did not use police brutality when they took down 5-foot-6, 110-pound Maryann Ost Chernick, 51, outside her Jericho home in 2019 after she allegedly unknowingly led them on a 13-mile chase while high on prescription pills, a federal jury decided Tuesday.
Chernick died about a year after her arrest, but her lawsuit was continued by her widower.
“The jury recognized and acknowledged what we have always known — that our officers conducted themselves entirely appropriately and within the bounds of the law,” the Suffolk district attorney’s office said in a statement.
On Feb. 9, 2019, Chernick — who was taking pain medication for stomach cancer — backed her car into a CVS pharmacy and drove off without stopping, according to court documents.
A witness called the police, who caught up with her on the Long Island Expressway, but she ignored their lights and sirens the whole way home and then blew through the security gate and stopped in her driveway, according to court papers.
Her lawyers argued that Chernick, who later pleaded guilty to driving under the influence, thought the cops were responding to something else, despite following her all the way home.
The officers confronted her as she tried to punch in her garage keycode, brought her to the ground and slapped on the cuffs, but the takedown left her face bloodied and fractured her right arm so badly it required eight hours of surgery, her camp said.
After a short deliberation, the jury decided it couldn’t agree that the officers used excessive force.
I was very disappointed,” said Chernick’s widower, Ira Chernick, 75, to The Post on Sunday.
“There was no justice for her, what they did to her,” he said. “Although they got excused, I would like to think they learned their lesson.”
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