Plane wrong!
Ex-cops sue Post, blast hooker-sex tale
Two former NYPD officers linked to a bribery scandal sued the New York Post on Sunday for $5 million over a 2016 report that they joined cop-bribers in group sex with a prostitute.
The private flight to Las Vegas on the weekend of the 2013 Super Bowl was the most notorious episode in a gifts-for-favors scandal that reached the highest ranks of the Police Department. Aboard the plane were two Mayor de Blasio donors, Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg, who showered police officers with gifts in exchange for official favors. Joining them on the flight were Rechnitz’s friend Marco Franco, a prostitute, Gabi Grecko, and two cops, Deputy Inspector James “Jimmy” Grant and Detective Mike Milici.
Federal prosecutors said Grant and others “took advantage of (Grecko’s) services during the trip” and cited the all-expenses-paid trip with the call girl as an example of the bribes doled out by Rechnitz and Reichberg.
In a tell-all interview with Post reporter Shawn Cohen after the charges were announced, Grecko shared salacious details about the $59,000 flight. Photos showed she wore a sexy stewardess costume on the plane. She said she performed oral sex on each man and had sex with more than one of them at the same time.
In the new defamation lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Grant and Milici say the fact-challenged tabloid got it all wrong. They never had sex with Grecko, who shouldn’t have been believed, their lawsuit claims. “Never did Jimmy and me get naked on a plane and have group sex in front of other men,” Milici told the Daily News.
“Does it make sense two guys like Mike and me would get naked and do these crazy things?” Grant asked.
Grant was acquitted at trial of accepting bribes. Milici was never charged with wrongdoing but fired from the NYPD. Both Grant and Milici have filed lawsuits over their departures from the force. Their new lawsuit claims that the lurid article, and subsequent followups, were a big factor in their ousters from the department.
What really happened on the plane wasn’t nearly as raunchy as had been portrayed, Grant said.
The trip was like a bachelor party, he said. There were crude jokes and drinks but no public sex, Grant said. Milici and Grant said they were surprised to learn Grecko was aboard the flight about 20 minutes after takeoff. At one point Grecko and Franco went into a small room in the back of the plane, Grant said.
“There were no sexual acts,” Grant said.
“When we got into Vegas she stayed in the room with Marco Franco.”
A message for Franco was not returned. Grecko could not be reached through her attorney.
Both men were outraged by an exclusive News report in May 2018 revealing Cohen had a fling with Grecko after his story was published.
“Better supervision and better fact-checking would have probably saved these gentlemen’s careers,” the excops’ attorney Abe George said.
Cohen, who was fired from the Post over the dalliance, declined comment. He has repeatedly emphasized that his story was accurate and that the short relationship with Grecko began after the article was published.
During her testimony last year Grecko spoke in vague terms about what happened on the plane, saying she engaged in “sex acts” with Grant, Reichberg and Rechnitz.
She shot down the lurid article, saying Cohen was “pushy” and that she just responded “yes” to some of his questions.
“I know what sexually happened. But I didn’t know all those details that they threw in there. None of those were true,” she said. She acknowledged on the stand that she never requested a retraction from the Post.
Grant and Milici’s lawsuit says there were “many reasons to doubt the veracity of her tales.”
Grecko, who raps under the name “Glitta Foxx” and has had an on-again, off-again relationship with a wealthy Australian septuagenarian, at times appeared disoriented on the stand.
A spokesman for the Post declined comment.
Milici and Grant said the alleged affair had caused tremendous damage to their marriages and families. Both have sons that share their names.
“My wife and I have slept in separate bedrooms for three years,” Milici said.