A Port Authority cop who “saw stars” after getting KO’d in a futile attempt to make peace during a Brooklyn bar brawl may be on the hook for tampering with a witness.
Officer Ryan McCarthy suffered a broken jaw when he got clobbered outside the Kettle Black in an April 2010 street fight that left a city firefighter stabbed in the arm.
But Arthur Aidala, a defense lawyer for one of the five men charged with assault, said he’ll go after McCarthy Wednesday for offering testimony that is “night and day” from what he told a grand jury — and for allegedly trying to squeeze a witness into testifying.
“You might want to let the union know they might want to get [a lawyer] here,” Supreme Court Justice Mark Dwyer told prosecutors after a flustered McCarthy left the stand grumbling “clown act” in response to Aidala’s pointed questions.
Earlier, McCarthy said he contacted longtime friend Antonella Manieri — who had been at the bar with him, another woman and Firefighter Rosario Cicero — when he learned last month that she might not testify.
“I text-mailed Antonella and I told her that I was disappointed,” McCarthy said, adding that the exchange turned into a “heated” profanity-laced exchange.
McCarthy testified that he “saw stars” after getting cold-cocked in his left jaw, allegedly by John DeCarlo when he tried to stop the 3 a.m. fight by pulling out his police shield.
“He told me he ‘didn’t give a f— who I was,’” McCarthy said. “Then I knew my badge meant nothing that night.”
DeCarlo, brothers Kevin and Michael Crowley, Peter Jung and Dan Golden – a nephew of Brooklyn state Sen. Martin Golden – are facing assault and other charges stemming from the fight.
McCarthy said he got stomped on and punched by “three or four people” while grappling with DeCarlo and Golden.
Upon escaping the scrum, he said he commandeered a cab as Cicero gushed blood from his left arm and screamed, “Get me to a hospital!”
“I let the cabbie know that if he didn’t drive this individual to the hospital that he was going to have a dead man in his car,” McCarthy said. “The back seat was a mess.”