Cops: Worker taunted man with cerebral palsy

An employee of a Roosevelt cerebral palsy center twice taunted a blind, wheelchair-bound victim, tilting and twisting the chair while making references to a roller-coaster ride, Nassau County police said Friday in announcing the arrest of the worker on an endangering charge.

Gregory Richardson Jr., 21, of 102 Hausch Blvd., Roosevelt, surrendered to First Precinct police Thursday on a charge of endangering the welfare of an incompetent person, police said. He is scheduled to be arraigned Friday at First District Court in Hempstead.

Detectives said Richardson, who worked as a staff member of the United Cerebral Palsy Association of Nassau County, put the 31-year-old blind male victim in "fear for his safety" with a taunting incident on June 21. An investigation revealed Richardson had made the twisting, turning movement with same victim at least one other time, police said.

The victim, who was not injured during the incidents, has physical and mental deficiencies, police said. Members of the center's executive staff cooperated with the investigation, police said.

Police said that the victim bit himself after Richardson repeatedly shook the wheelchair from side to side and tilted it backward.

Richardson told First Precinct police that "I tilted his chair because he laughed when I did it," court records show. Once the victim showed he was agitated, Richardson said, he stopped shaking and tilting the chair, according to the records.

Richardson allegedly told police that the victim bit himself shortly after the chair-shaking incident.

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"When I put him in the toilet two minutes later he bit himself," Richardson said, according to court records. "I never saw him bite himself before."

A phone call to the cerebral palsy association Friday morning seeking comment was not immediately returned.