Manhattan prosecutors have finally decided to drop charges against a woman allegedly caught driving drunk more than two years ago — after the cop who busted her was accused by her lawyer of lying in the case, The Post has learned.
Yael Glantz, 28, was stopped by Officer John Mascetti on Aug. 8, 2019, while she was behind the wheel of a black Mercedes-Benz 350 SUV in Midtown and charged with driving while intoxicated and driving while ability impaired.
Bodycam footage allegedly showed the officer’s growing irritation with Glantz as she unsuccessfully tried to take a portable breath test four times before he slapped her in cuffs, according to court documents previously reported by The Post.
But Mascetti wrote in arrest paperwork — and told the DA’s office — that Glantz blew a .15 on the breath test, her lawyer, Mark Bederow, wrote in the filings.
That blood-alcohol level would have been nearly twice the legal limit of .08 percent.
Video also appeared to show Mascetti texting another cop about Glantz, describing her as a “bitch” and a “total stripper” — adding, “I got pissed and cuffed her. I hate her,’” according to Bederow.
In letters to the DA’s office in 2019, Bederow called for charges against his client to be dropped over Mascetti’s “unprofessional behavior and bias” and the evidence showing he allegedly “deliberately misled” prosecutors about the arrest.
But the case dragged on, and it took until Wednesday, when Mascetti took the stand, for prosecutors to move to dismiss the charges — in the middle of Bederow’s cross-examination of the cop, the lawyer said.
During his testimony, Mascetti was confronted with the apparent discrepancies in his sworn statement and the bodycam footage, Bederow told The Post.
Some of the hold-up in dropping the charges could be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused delays in criminal proceedings. But the lawyer said it was still “mind-boggling” that it took until last week for prosecutors to pull the plug since “we notified the DA about [Mascetti’s] dreadful credibility two years ago in great detail.”
“They had the body camera, paperwork and texts and knew that Mascetti admitted that he hated Ms. Glantz and arrested her because she ‘pissed him off,’ ” Bederow said. “That is outrageous.”
Glantz, a yoga instructor, is “relieved” not to have the charges hanging over her head any longer but also “perplexed and disappointed in the way that she was treated by Mascetti and the DA’s office,” Bederow said.
“Neither she nor I can fathom how it took a courtroom spectacle to end this case two years after we alerted the DA to these problems,” he said. “She deserved better from Mascetti and the DA’s office.”
The DA’s office did not immediately return a request for comment Sunday.
