‘ I FORGIVE BUT NOT FORGET’
NYPD sodomy vic Louima says it’s ‘up to justice system’ if cop who assaulted him should get early release
The cop who sodomized Abner Louima with a jagged wooden handle in 1997 wants out of federal prison early because of COVID-19.
Louima is understanding. Even sympathetic.
But in an exclusive interview with the Daily News, he stopped short of supporting ex-NYPD Officer Justin Volpe’s compassionate release request.
“It’s up to the justice system, it’s not up to me,” Louima told The News on Monday. “It’s so many years after the crime. Twenty-one years is not 21 days. I think at least he’s spent enough time thinking about his actions.”
Volpe admitted his guilt again in his application for release, which he filed in late December, more than two decades after he pleaded guilty to the heinous crime. His prison release date is 2025.
“I do not seek to evade just punishment for my crime. I have served the overwhelming majority of the sentence. After 21 plus years in prison, it is my family who is being punished more,” he wrote.
“In 1997, I committed a serious wrong and crime. I take full responsibility and live with the pain it has caused the victim, his family and others. For over two decades I have tried to live in a way to make up for it.”
The crime is still remembered as one of the city’s most harrowing instances of police brutality. brutality
On Aug. 9, 1997, Louima was arrested at East Flatbush, Brooklyn’s popular Club Rendez-Vous after a fight broke out and Volpe mistakenly believed Louima had punched him.
In a police car after Louima’s arrest, Volpe pounded Louima. And later that nightnight, inside BrookBrooklyn’s 70th Precinct stationhouse, Volpe and another officer again beat up Louima.
Then, in a sick assault in a stationhouse bathroom, Volpe sodomized Louima with the wood handle from either a broomstick or plunger, trial testimony and
witnesses said. The instrument was never found.
Louima claimed Volpe and the other cop repeatedly called him a “n——r” during the heinous attack. The cop later bragged about the vicious assault to the other precinct cops.
Louima suffered a ruptured colon and bladder, and his teeth were bashed in the beating. His physical recovery took months.
Almost immediately, the shocking abuse sparked outrage at the NYPD, with thousands of demonstrators packing the streets a few weeks later, carrying signs calling for “Justice for Abner” and deriding the NYPD’s slogan of “Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect” by switching it to “Criminals, Perverts, Racists.”
Volpe, now jailed at a federal prison in Texas, has asked Brooklyn Federal Judge Frederic Block for release, arguing he became ill with COVID-19 in November behind bars.
“I tested positive for COVID-19 and had several symptoms. No medical treatment of any kind was provided or offered,” Volpe wrote in a compassionate release filing in his own behalf.
He added that he worries about COVID-19 s long-term effects.
“Please let me have the chance to meet any needs with private insurance and at home with my family’s love,” Volpe wrote.
In 2012, Volpe married his wife, Caroline Volpe, in a prison ceremony. He hopes to live with her if he is released, according to his motion. She declined to comment on the early-release request.
Federal prosecutors also declined to comment on Volpe’s motion.
Louima is now living in Miami. He isn’t working because of the still-raging pandemic. He told The News, “I’m doing great, thank God.”
But his ordeal is far from over. And he cannot forget.
“You cannot fully go away from that,” he said. “That’s something you’ll always have to deal with. But I thank God to be alive. I follow the word of God, so I have to forgive — but I don’t forget. A lot of people mix forgiving and forgetting.
“I forgive but I do not forget.”