New York Daily News – by Bill Hutchinson
Accused of going from hero to hoodlum in a single day, an NYPD cop has pleaded innocent to charges he drunkenly beat a woman after bursting into her apartment in his underwear.
Officer Eugene Donnelly’s hangover continued Monday at his arraignment in Bronx Supreme Court.
The Bronx cop was slapped with only misdemeanor charges stemming from the June 10 incident that left a 30-year-old woman terrorized and battered.
If convicted of the charges of assault, criminal trespass and criminal mischief, Donnelly, 27, faces a year in jail.
He’s already been stripped of his badge and gun, and placed on modified duty.
Donnelly’s cringe-worthy fall from grace began hours after he was decorated with the Police Combat Cross — the second highest NYPD honor — in a June 10 ceremony in which he shook hands with Mayor de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton.
The honor recognized Donnelly’s heroism in 2012 for arresting a gunman who fired at him.
Donnelly, who works at the 46th Precinct in the Bronx, tied one on to celebrate, drinking himself into a stupor. He went to a pal’s Woodlawn apartment to sleep it off.
BARRY WILLIAMS/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWSEugene Donnelly apparently celebrated too much after the NYPD medal ceremony June 10.But before dawn on June 11, a 30-year-old neighbor of Donnelly’s pal was startled awake by the cop breaking the chain lock on her front door, prosecutors said. The woman told detectives the intruder, who she didn’t know, was standing beside her bed in his underwear.
“Sometimes I’m a good guy, but sometimes I’m a bad guy,” Donnelly told the woman, according to a criminal complaint.
Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson said Donnelly then threw the woman on the floor and “pummeled her about the head.”
Before leaving the apartment, Donnelly guzzled a container of milk he grabbed from the fridge.
The victim immediately reported the assault and cops put out a wanted poster with an image of a bare-chested Donnelly taken from surveillance footage at the apartment building.
Donnelly was collared when a colleague recognized him.
He was ordered to return to court Dec. 10 for his next hearing.
“He’s already been stripped of his badge and gun, and placed on modified duty.”
Why the hell is he on ANY duty? He assaulted a woman in his UNDERWEAR, for cryin’ out loud!!!
And I don’t see B & E on that list, either.
Exactly!
He said it himself to her. Sometimes I am a good guy, sometimes I am a bad guy. What the police on the street live by. No rules but what they want and what they feel like at the time. If there was no vidio the police would do nothing about just the average American cop here. She had to get the vidio here, and do her own search. I thought you payed the police to do that? Oh I forgot you live in America there.
Do you think the same justice would apply for a citizen? Not a chance in hell!