A surveillance company employee erased a minute of bar brawl videotape as a favor to a cop implicated in a bloody fight in a Bay Ridge bar Saturday, sources say. Jasmin Pontic, an employee of Vanguard Computer Systems, has been charged with tampering with physical evidence and obstructing governmental administration, according to a defense lawyer representing two suspects arrested in the case. Attorney Arthur Adalia says he suspects Pontic deleted the footage as a favor to Officer Paul Aparo.
It's unclear what started the fight that left Aparo, Firefighter Rosario Cicero and Port Authority Officer Ryan McCarthy injured. One of the five young men arrested, John DeCarlo, allegedly threw the first punch and fled the Kettle Black after smashing a bottle over Aparo's head. Adalia, who is representing DeCarlo and Dan Golden, (nephew of Brooklyn state Sen. Marty Golden), claims that the deleted video footage showed a shirtless Aparo running from the bar to "renew hostilities" with the arrested men.
Investigators say DeCarlo and his friends used knives and broken bottles to further assault the three civil servants about a block from the bar. But Adalia insists his clients didn't start the fight, and were merely defending themselves. He told the Daily News, "It seems like the people who got injured the most became the victims and the people who didn't became the defendants—as opposed to who started the fight."
