One of the few things the New York Times has done right is bring aboard a reporter with the street smarts of Jim Dwyer, who used to slum for Newsday and the Daily News.  Forget the Pulitzer Prize thing, Dwyer has always understood that the system is rotten, and it’s his role to expose it.  And in his expose of Vaughan Ettienne, body builder, NYPD Officer, and cop who beat Gary Waters and then planted a throw-away on him to cover the three broken ribs, Dwyer does it again.

Ettienne had Myspace  and Facebook pages, using the name “Devious”, where his “Internet persona” came out.  It wasn’t the police officer in the clean uniform politely answering questions on the witness stand. 

What seemed like a simple gun possession case became an undeclared war over reality: Was Officer Ettienne a diligent cop who found a gun after chasing an ex-convict weaving through traffic on a stolen motorcycle? Or was his story a “devious” facade in keeping with the ruthless character he revealed on social network Web sites?

“You have your Internet persona, and you have what you actually do on the street,” Officer Ettienne said on Tuesday. “What you say on the Internet is all bravado talk, like what you say in a locker room.”

Besides the “devious” mood setting, the jurors learned that a few weeks before the trial, the officer posted this status on his Facebook page: “Vaughan is watching ‘Training Day’ to brush up on proper police procedure.”

While it’s unlikely that the fantasy world crafted in cyberspace by a warped mind manifests itself daily on the street, it is similarly unlikely that the good cop persona, carefully crafted in the Police Academy, is any closer to reality.  Inside that dark, dank space between Ettienne’s ears is the tension that resulted in Water’s three broken ribs for his resisting arrest conviction.

What was particularly fascinating was how the trial judge saw the issue when Water’s defense attorney, Adrian Lesher, sought to introduce Ettienne’s online persona to counter his courtside manner.

The prosecutor, Kevin James, tried to persuade the judge, Joel M. Goldberg, that remarks like the one about “Training Day” had nothing to do with the arrest. “It goes into artistic interpretations to a movie, directorship, actors,” Mr. James said.

“I don’t think it’s enlightening.” The judge replied, “If you want to redirect and the witness says I liked it because of the cinematography, he can say that.”

(Note: Heard from Adrian Lesher and Jim Dwyer, that the quote “I don’t think it’s enlightening” was misattributed to the judge due to a pagination error, and was in fact said by the prosecutor.  Obivously, that changes everything as to Judge Goldberg’s response, and I’ve struck my comments below relying upon the quote)

Put aside the prosecutor’s imaginative argument, and consider the court’s reaction.  Had the defendant been on Facebook with a comment that he enjoyed some rap music about shooting cop or ‘ho’s, which pretty much covers any rap song every recorded, you can bet it would be admitted as evidence of something evil.  But while the judge allowed Lesher to ask the questions, he failed to see anything particularly “enlightening” about it.  That it revealed a hole so big in Ettienne’s carefully crafted courtroom persona that you could drive a Mack truck through it didn’t impress Justice Goldberg.  Even though the defense was about a cop who beat a perp and planted a gun to justify it, he still wasn’t moved. 

Lesher’s legwork in unearthing Ettienne’s “Internet persona” is quite impressive, and should put to rest those who try to create business by abusing public defenders.  He made the effort to dig and found gold.

Judge Goldberg, on the other hand, doesn’t appear to get it at all.  Perhaps he’s not attuned to life online (like I am, of course) and doesn’t realize that many secrets are revealed when someone feels the disinhibition of the vast web before them?  Or perhaps he’s just such a true believer in cross that no one witness, not even a body-builder cop, can withstand such crushing scrutiny? 

In any event, this appears to be a one-shot mistake for Vaughan Ettienne.

Officer Ettienne said he is now being careful to mask his identity on the Web and that he has curbed his tongue because of the acquittal. “I feel it’s partially my fault,” he said. “It paints a picture of a person who could be overly aggressive. You put that together, it’s reasonable doubt in anybody’s mind.”

The good news, of course, is that loose lips on the internet are there forever.  Whatever picture is painted, it’s always going to be a self-portrait.