Police Officer Justin Volpe will plead guilty today to the gruesome sex torture of Abner Louima in a desperate attempt to save himself from a possible life sentence, lawyers said yesterday.
“I’m OK,” Volpe told The Post moments before the decision was relayed to the judge.
“What are you going to do?” he asked with a shrug.
The disgraced cop decided to throw himself on the mercy of the court and plead directly to federal Judge Eugene Nickerson. The move came after prosecutors refused efforts by his lawyer, Marvyn Kornberg, to negotiate a plea to lesser charges.
Most defendants who plead directly to a judge confess to every charge against them.
Before Volpe’s plea can be finalized, he must tell Nickerson what he did – and convince the judge he’s telling the truth.
Because five of the seven counts in Volpe’s federal indictment also name other cops, he could end up implicating one or more of them.
Kornberg would not comment on what Volpe will say.
The planned plea will not affect the schedule of the trial. Testimony had already been canceled for today because the wife of Joseph Tacopina, a lawyer representing one of the other defendants, is giving birth to twins.
Stephen Worth, the lawyer for cop Charles Schwarz, who is accused of holding Louima down in a station-house bathroom while Volpe sodomized him with a stick, said, “Nothing Justin Volpe does affects our defense.”
He said he would not ask for a mistrial – at least not yet.
Lawyers for the other three cops also said they had no intention of seeking a mistrial.
Louima’s lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein, said the guilty plea made him “confident that full justice will be accomplished.”
“I am hopeful that as a result of this, the full truth will be testified in court,” Rubenstein said. “I look forward to the case being tried to its conclusion.”
Rubenstein refused to say what Louima’s reaction was to news of Volpe’s plea.
The maximum possible punishment for the charge to which Volpe will plead guilty – violating Louima’s civil rights – is life imprisonment without parole.
But Volpe, 27, could also get 30 years, or even less, if the judge gives him credit for accepting responsibility for the shocking torture.
Before the decision was announced, a red-eyed Volpe hugged his dad, Robert Volpe, a former detective, in the hallway outside the courtroom.
If Justin Volpe does plead guilty today, the trial is likely to resume tomorrow for Schwarz and the other four defendants.
The judge will instruct the anonymous jurors not to speculate on Volpe’s sudden absence three weeks into the trial.
The charges against the cops stem from the arrest of Louima outside a Flatbush nightclub on August 9, 1997.
Officers Thomas Wiese and Thomas Bruder are charged with beating Louima in a patrol car while taking him to the 70th Precinct station house.
Sgt. Michael Bellomo, their supervisor, is accused of lying to cover up the cops’ misconduct.
Volpe’s lawyers began talking plea deal with prosecutors last week after Sgt. Kenneth Wernick testified that an out-of-control Volpe bragged about the sex attack and shoved the feces-stained stick in another cop’s face and ordered, “Smell it!”