$4M for fall tied to cops

A BROOKLYN Jury awarded $4.15 million to a man who accused cops of deliberately causing him to fall from the ledge of a four-story building.

Brian Martin, 31, plunged to the pavement below, striking an air conditioner protruding from the window of the building on the way down. He fractured his heel and broke his back, but miraculously survived the August 2009 incident.

“I was hurt, I was really hurt,” he said. “I just wanted to go to sleep.”

Martin said he was chased into a building on Hoyt St. in Gowanus by plainclothes cops who later claimed they thought a bulge in his pants might have been a weapon.

During a tussle on the roof, Martin tumbled over a 3½-foot wall around the roof and managed to grab onto the ledge for about 15 seconds, he said at press conference in his lawyer’s office.

He alleged that Officer Alex Bakalis “banged” on his right hand with an object causing him to lose his grip. “My left hand just gave up on its own,” Martin said.

Bakalis has since retired from the force with a tax-free retirement and his partner, Jose Cofresi, has been promoted to detective, according to Martin’s lawyer, Seth Harris.

“I think, frankly, the most important witnesses in the case were the actual two arresting officers because of ... how they contradicted themselves,” said Harris.

Martin was convicted of a federal drug charge in 2013, but has turned his life around since his release from prison and works as a loan broker for a bank.

A spokesman for the Law Department said the city is disappointed with the verdict reached Thursday afternoon in Brooklyn Supreme Court, and is reviewing its options.