by Ned Berke
Diego Palacios, the police
officer kicked off the force after his bogus arrest of a Sheepshead Bay man,
may have been sentenced to four days in prison – but he served only one night.
New York Post picked up on our
exclusive story last week – without giving credit to Sheepshead Bites – noting
that Palacios pleaded guilty in exchange for a sentence of four days in prison
and his resignation from the NYPD. The paper learned that Palacios had to spend
only a single night behind bars, though.
Palacios was imprisoned after
the Thursday afternoon hearing, in which he admitted to filing a false police
report that claimed Sheepshead Bay resident John Hockenjos attempted to run the
officer over with his car. That four-day sentence meant that Palacios would
have been a free man again on Sunday.
But the sweetheart deal for a
man who nearly put an innocent man in jail for seven years got even sweeter for
Palacios: state law requires that inmates scheduled for discharge on a weekend
should be freed on Friday.
Palacios spent the night in
jail, and was freed the next day.
Hockenjos is fuming over the
short prison sentence, and afraid for his safety.
“He’s a free man to do whatever
he wants,” Hockenjos told Sheepshead Bites last week. “And I have to be in pure
fear that there could be retribution. I should not be in this position.”
