

Ramsey Orta, who filmed a police officer fatally choking a Staten Island man during an arrest, was arraigned on gun charges yesterday. Orta is convinced the arrest was NYPD-style retribution, telling the Staten Island Advance that he's "100% sure" the cops set him up.

Police say that Orta tried to hide a gun on a 17-year-old girl on Saturday. Orta has been in the spotlight since the Daily News obtained his video documenting the July 17 arrest of Eric Garner, who died while the police were trying to restrain him and put him in a chokehold. Last week, Garner's death was ruled a homicide.

Orta insisted the gun wasn't his, "When they searched me, they didn't find nothing on me. And the same cop that searched me, he told me clearly himself, that karma's a bitch, what goes around comes around," Orta said, adding later, "I had nothing to do with this. I would be stupid to walk around with a gun after me being in the spotlight." He also explained what he was doing out:

My wife asked me to go get a Yoo-hoo and a Tylenol PM, so that's what I decided to do. I knew that they were following me from my house to KFC (on Victory Boulevard near Bay Street). When I went inside the bathroom in KFC and I came back out, they were still following me. So I walked up the hill towards Central Avenue, next thing I know, they jump out on me. "They searched me, they didn't find nothing. They searched the girl, they found the gun on her. Then all of a sudden, they're telling me to turn around."

Orta's family also said the police have been following him around since his incriminating video was shown. His wife said, "He called me and said, 'babe, hurry up and come over here. They’re trying to pin something on me.' The day after they declare it a homicide, you find someone next to him with a gun, and you saw him pass it off? Out in public when he knows he’s in the public spotlight? It makes no sense."

The teen girl's mother says her daughter is innocent and that Orta got her in trouble.

Orta is being held on $75,000 bail; prosecutors pointed out, "He's only 22 years old yet he has two felony convictions and six misdemeanor convictions as an adult. He does have one bench warrant." What any of this has to do with the death of Eric Garner at the hands of the NYPD remains unclear.