Video of Westbury traffic stop seen as key evidence in police brutality case

A video of a Westbury traffic stop that led to assault charges against a Nassau police officer could be a key piece of evidence in an upcoming trial involving allegations of police brutality, legal experts say.

Whether Officer Vincent LoGiudice opts for a trial by judge or jury also could play into the outcome of the case in a Mineola court, analysts said of the trial expected to start Tuesday.

LoGiudice, 35, who joined the police force in 2007, has pleaded not guilty to two felonies and one misdemeanor. He faces up to 7 years in prison if convicted of the top count.

"A video is always limited by what it shows and what it doesn't show. But it's still helpful," said Hofstra Law School professor Fred Klein, former head of the Major Offense Bureau at the Nassau district attorney's office.

He said an argument always can be made that what isn't shown on a video "is exculpatory," but a video also "doesn't forget like human beings do."

"It doesn't forget and it doesn't lie," Klein said.

The charges stem from an April 25, 2014, traffic stop that a store's outside surveillance equipment recorded. The family of alleged police brutality victim Kyle Howell obtained the video after his arrest on charges that included assaulting LoGiudice and his partner, Officer Basil Gomez.

Howell, then 20 and working in a motorcycle shop, said he suffered injuries that included a broken nose, fractures by both eyes and facial nerve damage.

The parents of Howell, who is black, also have said he was the victim of racial profiling by two white officers. He has since filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the county, LoGiudice and Gomez, who wasn't criminally charged. The lawsuit also said Howell's jaw was broken.

Police had alleged in complaints that the Westbury man violently resisted arrest while trying to eat a bag of marijuana, as the officers, who later needed hospital treatment, tried to retrieve it and arrest him.

But prosecutors and police internal affairs investigators launched a probe into officer conduct after the video surfaced. A judge later dropped all charges against Howell upon a request from prosecutors.

LoGiudice's attorney, William Petrillo of Garden City, has said previously the video doesn't show what went on inside the car and that every action officers' took in the encounter "was reasonable and necessary under the circumstances."

Howell said publicly at first that he didn't fight police and had no drugs with him during the traffic stop, but later admitted to prosecutors he'd had a small amount of marijuana and had been worried about it because he was on probation.

Court records show he pleaded guilty to petty larceny and marijuana possession after two arrests in 2012. Separately, Howell, now 22, is facing prosecution in Manhattan after a May arrest by the NYPD on charges including resisting arrest and possessing stolen property.

Eugene O'Donnell, a John Jay College of Criminal Justice lecturer and former police officer and assistant district attorney in New York City, said the government likely will approach the case from the perspective of "the kid is no angel, but look at the level of force used here."

He said Howell's injuries will be problematic for the defense, but "in the end, doubt is going to favor the police."

Fordham Law professor James Cohen said judges work in the same system as police, are sensitive to the difficulties of their work, and also "don't want to be known as a judge who convicts police officers." But O'Donnell said that either way, there's no such thing as a predictable verdict.