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Chicago cop who beat up female bartender gets probation
By David Heinzmann and Matthew Walberg | Tribune reporters
June 24, 2009
In the infamous video, Karolina Obrycka was the feisty little bartender who seemed unafraid of a few drunks giving her lip, snapping at Anthony Abbate and telling him to get out from behind her bar. Until the drunken off-duty cop hurled her to the floor and the punches and kicks started flying.
Everything changed that night, said Obrycka, who watched a Cook County judge let the suspended cop walk out of court Tuesday with probation and no time behind bars for his attack on her. She's no longer that fearless person, she said. She dreads being alone, she has trouble trusting people, and she fears the police.
"I haven't worked anywhere. I'm afraid something else will happen," she told the Tribune. "If I ever go back to bartending, the owners would have to be there all the time. I'm not comfortable working by myself."
She says it's not quite rational to fear the police, but she can't help feeling anxious when she's out and about with her husband and child. She is afraid they'll get pulled over for something. Afraid the cops will recognize her. Afraid they'll be friends of Abbate's.
"I have a fear of the police. I know they don't want to hurt me, but I have a fear," she said. "I can't explain it."
Obrycka hoped Abbate would do some time for his conviction, she said, but she wasn't pointing any fingers Tuesday. "I was disappointed that he didn't get a sentence to go to jail," she said. "But I can't criticize the judge."
Some legal experts did criticize Circuit Judge John Fleming's decision. But because Obrycka did not suffer serious physical injuries and Abbate had no criminal history, most lawyers weren't surprised. For her part, Obrycka was more angry that Abbate has never apologized to her. In fact, his lawyer, Peter Hickey, continued blaming her for the incident during the sentencing hearing Tuesday.
At the center of the case was security video from Jesse's Short Stop Inn on Feb. 19, 2007, that showed the hulking officer throw Obrycka against a wall, then slam her to the floor, where he aimed a series of frenzied punches and kicks at her.
Abbate had walked behind the bar after she refused to serve him more alcohol. Obrycka, who is half Abbate's size, shouted at him, but he did not leave her work area. When she tried to push him out, the assault started, with other patrons looking on.
At the sentencing hearing, prosecutors presented a second, previously unreleased video that they said showed Abbate beating a man in the same Northwest Side bar six hours before he attacked Obrycka. It was one of two other fights they say he got into that day -- proof, they said, that he was a "brutal, dangerous" man. No charges were filed in the second taped attack because the victim, a patron, declined to press charges, prosecutors said.
"It is by the grace of God that she wasn't hurt worse," Assistant State's Atty. LuAnn Snow told Fleming. "The people cannot tell you how strongly we feel probation would deprecate the seriousness of this offense."
But Fleming, who found Abbate guilty of aggravated battery this month in a two-day bench trial, chose 2 years of probation instead of any jail time. He said the law requires that he consider a host of factors -- such as prior criminal history, severity of the injury to the victim and whether a stiff sentence would serve as a deterrent to others -- in deciding whether to send the officer to prison.
"If I believed sending Anthony Abbate to prison would stop people from getting drunk and hitting other people, I'd sentence him to the maximum," Fleming said. "But I don't believe that is the case."
Noting the case has received worldwide attention via television and the Internet, he said such publicity had no bearing on the law.
Hickey argued that his client had already been punished for his "act of unbelievable stupidity." "He went out and got himself so drunk that he got into this position and ruined his life," Hickey said. "Tony Abbate recognizes that. He's not a bad person; he did something bad."
But Fleming should have considered "the breach of public faith and public trust" created by the Abbate case, said University of Chicago law professor Craig Futterman. "It's something that requires an even sterner sentence when our officers act as if they're above the law."
The Chicago Police Department's handling of the case drew criticism because police first tried to charge Abbate with a misdemeanor before the video became public. Just weeks later, video of a second barroom beating involving off-duty officers at the Jefferson Tap and Grille emerged, heaping more outrage on a police department already under fire in the Special Operations Section scandal, in which officers allegedly kidnapped and robbed people in dozens of incidents over several years.
With allegations of cover-ups to protect accused officers in all three incidents, then-Supt. Philip Cline was forced into retirement by Mayor Richard Daley.
The fallout from the scandals motivated Daley to go outside the department for Cline's replacement, settling on former FBI official Jody Weis, an unpopular choice with rank-and-file officers.
On Tuesday, Weis said, "I don't think anyone who behaves like that should be a police officer."
The department is seeking to have Abbate fired, and the Independent Police Review Authority has recommended his dismissal, Weis said. The case is up before the Police Board on July 7.
For video evidence of the beating and picture of the ugly asshole, woman-beater click here
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