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Three go free in Yonkers case

February 17, 2011

By Staff Reporter

The six-member jury, all of them women and sitting in Yonkers City Court, delivered its decision Monday after about ninety minutes of deliberations.
The trial of the three men, including a serving New York police officer, had gone on for a little over a week.
Officer Michael McGhee, former NYPD officer Thomas Wimmer, and Patrick Tully, who is from the Bronx, were accused of assaulting Peter Cummins on McLean Avenue on the night of September 14, 2007.
Cummins, 26 at the time, suffered serious injury. As well as losing sight in one eye, he also suffered a fractured skull, nasal fractures and hemorrhaging in the brain.
All three accused had pleaded innocent and were each standing trial on a misdemeanor assault charge after earlier charges of reckless assault were dropped.
The incident took place in the early hours of September 14, 2007. According to the Westchester District Attorney’s office, Cummins was leaving a bar and escorting his girlfriend home when words were exchanged between one of the men and his girlfriend.
“As the situation escalated, at least two more men surrounded the couple. The victim was punched and fell to the ground sustaining his injuries,” the statement said.
Reports pointed to something being said to Cummins’ girlfriend, and another woman, that both women found to be offensive.
The jury, however, found that the three accused had not broken the law.
“We did not feel that the district attorney had proven the case. It was scattered and nothing was proven. Reasonable doubt was certainly there,” one of the six jurors was reported as saying by the Journal News after the verdict was reached.
The jury had earlier delivered separate not guilty verdicts for McGhee, 31, Wimmer, 26, and Tully, 27.
According to the Westchester daily, the judge in the case, Michael Martinelli, then sealed the case after the verdict and dismissed the orders of protection that were imposed on the defendants for the victim, Peter Cummins, 27, his girlfriend, and her friend.
Friends and relatives of the defendants clapped as the jurors filed out, the paper reported.
Cummins, who was not in the courtroom for the verdict, has separately filed a $10 million lawsuit against the three men and the New York Police Department.
Attorney Howard Tanner, who represented McGhee, said the case should never have been prosecuted. He told the Journal News that political pressure brought on (Westchester County) District Attorney Janet DiFiore and (Yonkers) Police Commissioner Edmund Hartnett, had led to the arrests of the three defendants.
Tanner said he will seek to have McGhee, who has been on modified duty since the incident in September 2007, reinstated to full duty.
During the trial, the defense attorneys argued that Cummins had attacked Tully after Cummins’ girlfriend thought he said something offensive to her.
Wimmer and McGhee had tried to stop the fight, the defense attorneys stated. During the fight, it was said, Cummins had exacerbated a pre-existing serious eye injury.
Assistant District Attorney, Heidi Mason, had argued during trial that the three men had intentionally beat Cummins.

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