Sensing an unmissable news dump opportunity, the Manhattan DA’s office announced on Friday afternoon that NYPD Deputy Inspectors Anthony “Tony Baloney” Bologna and Johnny “Johnny Cardona” Cardona will not face criminal charges for their allegedly unprovoked attacks on Occupy Wall Street protesters last year. In case you forgot, Bologna is the guy who was taped pepper-spraying several female demonstrators while they were caught under some netting. (Since then, he has lost some vacation time and been reassigned to Staten Island.) Cardona was accused of sucker-punching protester Felix Rivera-Pitre in the face. Though the men are still being sued over the incidents, DA spokeswoman Erin Duggan said that her office had “concluded, after a thorough investigation, that we cannot prove these allegations criminally beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Lawyer Ron Kuby, who is representing the plaintiffs of both lawsuits, called the decision “cowardly and despicable” in the New York Times. Meanwhile, Roy Richter, the president of the union to which Bologna and Cardona belong, said that “declining to prosecute Inspector Bologna was ‘the right decision’ and that Inspector Cardona had been injured by Occupy protesters and ‘is the true victim of the O.W.S. fiasco.’” At least some people got a nice baby out of all this.
