High drama
Freed in granny attack, he sues: I only puffed pot
JOSHUA McCALLUM just wanted to get high — only to find himself in deep trouble.
Now the 24-year-old Bronx man plans to sue the NYPD over his Aug. 18 arrest in a reported choking and groping attack of a 76-year-old woman as she stepped off the elevator of her Morrisania building.
“I did not do this,” McCallum insisted during an interview with the Daily News in his lawyer’s office. “I’ve never been in a situation like this.”
McCallum claims he was wrongfully arrested, while the police insist their arrest was solid even though the case fell apart.
Either way, the fallout was immediate: McCallum’s name appeared in the media. He spent 24 hours in Central Booking, he was fired from his job at FedEx, and the mother of his child no longer speaks to him.
“You can’t unring that bell,” said lawyer Neil Wollerstein.
McCallum says the police were wrong from the start, and his only crime was smoking marijuana in the building.
NYPD spokesman Lt. John Grimpel countered that police had the right man when they charged McCallum with attacking the senior citizen, who needs a walker to get around.
“We’re not looking for anyone else,” said Grimpel. “We arrested the person we believe to be responsible for the incident.”
The elderly woman was grabbed by an attacker who put her in a chokehold and then groped her on an upper floor that lacks video surveillance. The suspect bolted when she banged on a neighbor’s door for help.
Moments earlier, surveillance video captured a man dressed in black entering the elevator before the victim. Wollerstein noted the victim later told police the man who attacked her was wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans.
“The description is completely off,” Wollerstein said. “They also never conducted a lineup or put his picture in a photo array. The most flimsy investigation I think I’ve ever seen.”
Sources said the victim suffers from dementia, admitted that she never saw the suspect’s face and has stopped speaking with investigators.
“She had some credibility issues and she decided to stop cooperating in the case,” said a spokeswoman for the Bronx district attorney’s office. “We had circumstantial evidence . . . and we couldn’t go forward with the case.”
McCallum, who lived with his aunt around the corner, said he went to the victim’s building because it’s “low-key” and he was looking for a quiet spot to smoke weed.
McCallum didn’t know he was a suspect until a police officer “who’s like an uncle to me” saw the video surveillance in media reports. The two went to the 44th Precinct, where McCallum was charged with sexual abuse.
He was released shortly after his friend posted $1,000 bail. But the damage was already done, McCallum said.
“My face was all over, everywhere,” he said. “I just want to lay low.”
In addition to losing his job, he has yet to resume classes at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. McCallum now “has to live with this for the rest of his life,” his lawyer said.
I did not do this. I’ve never been in a situation like this. Joshua McCallum (right)