November 18, 1998

PROBATION OFFICER FOUND GUILTY OF SHOOTING WOMAN IN ASTORIA BAR ON ASSAULT AND RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT CHARGES AFTER A NIGHT OF DRINKING

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced today the conviction of a New York City Probation Officer for discharging his gun in an Astoria bar, wounding the bartender, after he and another officer spent the night drinking at the establishment.

District Attorney Brown identified the defendant as Michael Hale, 31, of 45-23 45th Street, Woodside, who had served as a New York City Probation Officer for the past nine years. He was convicted of assault in the third degree and reckless endangerment in the second degree after a one week jury trial before Supreme Court Justice Richard Buchter. He will be sentenced on January 5, 1999 and faces up to a year in prison.

According to trial testimony, on the evening of November 9, 1997, the defendant and another probation officer went to a bar to have a few drinks. They left that bar around 7 pm to pick up the victim, a friend of the second officer, and drove the victim to work at the Grecco/Latino Bar which has since been closed, where she worked as a bartender. The two officers decided to stay at the Grecco/Latino bar and have some more drinks. They were there from approximately 7:30 to 10:00 pm. At one point during that time, the defendant took out his service revolver. The victim and the second officer told him to put the gun away and the defendant complied. However at about 10 p.m. when the second officer got up to use the restroom, the defendant again took out his gun and proceeded to remove the bullets and close the cylinder. He then pointed the gun in the general direction of the victim behind the bar and a bullet discharged hitting her under the left clavicle bone and exiting her back. The police were called and the defendant was arrested.

ADA Phyllis C. Weiss of the Queens District Attorney's Integrity Bureau, under the supervision of Vincent J. Carroll, Bureau Chief, and under the overall supervision of Robert D. Alexander, Executive District Attorney, prosecuted the case.