Joe Malinconico

Paterson Press

PATERSON — FBI agents made a startling discovery last year when they seized drug-dealing Paterson Police Officer Ruben McAusland’s cellphone: a disturbing video of the cop attacking a suicide patient at a hospital emergency room, federal authorities said.

The video became the basis for a new investigation, one that resulted in a criminal charge against McAusland and the arrest of his patrol partner, Roger Then, who recorded the attack, authorities said.

“Prior to that video being discovered, we did not know about that assault,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Rahul Agarwal said during McAusland’s sentencing in federal court in Newark on Wednesday morning.

Calling the disgraced former officer a “street hustler,” U.S. District Judge William Walls sentenced McAusland to 66 months — more than five years — in prison for dealing drugs and assaulting the hospital patient. He is scheduled to start serving his sentence on May 20.

The judge also ordered McAusland to pay $32,892 in restitution to the hospital victim, who needed facial surgery to repair a broken eye socket, and to forfeit the $13,650 in made from his drug sales.

Confronted by the FBI with evidence of his drug dealing, McAusland agreed to wear a wire last year to help catch a Paterson couple who were supplying him with heroin pills, Agarwal said. McAusland’s work as an informant led to the federal drug conviction last year of Juan Vidal and Karen Rojas on charges they distributed thousands of heroin pills in Paterson, authorities said.

But McAusland refused to cooperate with the FBI’s investigation of the other Paterson cops targeted in the federal probe, noted the judge.

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Eudy Ramos arraigned

Meanwhile, minutes after McAusland’s sentencing concluded, another accused Paterson cop, Eudy Ramos, appeared in a courtroom across the street for his arraignment. Ramos last week was charged in a nine-count indictment accusing him of making illegal traffic stops and shaking down occupants for money.

Ramos declined to comment as he left the court building. His lawyer, Miles Feinstein, said Ramos is innocent and plans to take the case to trial.

Authorities have accused Ramos of conspiring with four other Paterson police officers in the shakedown stops — including one who has pleaded guilty to the crimes, two who have charges pending against them and one whose name has not been revealed.

Court records say two of the officers in the alleged conspiracy — listed as confidential witnesses — have agreed to cooperate with authorities in exchange for a break on the charges against them.

But Feinstein emphatically said Ramos is not one of those confidential witnesses. “My client is not a cooperating defendant or a cooperating witness,” the lawyer said.

'It snowballed'

During McAusland’s sentencing, Walls asked the 27-year-old former cop why he committed his crimes.

McAusland said he was just 21 years old when he joined the police force.

“I was afraid that people would say that I was a success, that I forgot where I came from,” McAusland said. “So I kept my friends.”

One of those friends made him a drug proposition, McAusland said.

“I just saw it as a shortcut,” the convicted cop said. “It started off as something really small and it snowballed into something else.”

Walls talked about the “lack of humanity” in McAusland’s assault on the hospital patient — video recordings of which were shown in court during the sentencing.

One video, taken by a hospital security camera, shows McAusland punch a man in a wheelchair in a crowded emergency room waiting area at St. Joseph’s University Medical Center. The second video was taken by Then, McAusland’s police partner, after hospital security staff moved the patient to a private room, federal authorities said.

McAusland and the patient are arguing when the man calls the cop a “bitch.” When McAusland steps closer to the hospital bed, looming over the man, the patient says, “Do it.”

The cop then forcefully slaps the man across the face two times. “Calm your ass down,” McAusland says.

During Wednesday’s hearing, McAusland said he lost his temper after the man allegedly threw a box of medical gloves that hit him.

“He didn’t deserve that,” McAusland said. “Nobody deserves that from a police officer.”

The judge said the assault seemed to show a “lack of humanity.” Agarwal said the victim decided not to attend the sentencing but wrote a statement that the United States attorney read in court.

The victim, Andrew Casciano, said the attack still haunts him and made him feel degraded.

“Police officers are supposed to protect and serve, not assault and humiliate,” the victim said in the statement read by the prosecutor.

McAusland told the judge he was a good person who often helped people. “This was my first mistake and the worst mistake I ever made,” the convicted cop said.

“It was a heck of a mistake,” Walls responded.

McAusland pleaded guilty last June to selling thousands of dollars’ worth of heroin, cocaine and marijuana, drug deals that he conducted in 2017 and 2018, sometimes while on duty, in uniform and in his police patrol vehicle.

He also admitted the assault on the suicide patient at a hospital emergency room in March 2018. The victim has filed a legal notice of a $4 million lawsuit against the city.

McAusland, Then and Ramos are three of of six police officers who have been arrested in an FBI probe of the Paterson Police Department that started more than two years ago.

Two of them have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing: Jonathan Bustios on charges involving the traffic stops and Then for participating in the hospital assault with McAusland.

Others facing pending charges involving the traffic stops are Officers Matthew Torres and Daniel Pent, who was arrested Tuesday.

Email: editor@patersonpress.com

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