U.S. Magistrate Judge Geoffrey W. Barnard is expected to issue a written ruling today on whether to release Officer Ian Williams Jr., Police Benevolent Association vice president, who is charged with third-degree assault and tampering with a victim and witness.
Curtis Gomez, an assistant U.S. attorney, said Williams posed a threat to the community and should be held without bail, the Independent and Daily News reported Wednesday.
Williams was arrested Friday. He was under a restraining order when he allegedly held a handgun to the head of his common-law wife, Brendaly Nazario, and threatened to kill her.
During Tuesday's five-hour hearing, Richard C. Geeslin, a special agent with the FBI, played tape recordings of phone calls Nazario says Williams made threatening her life and the life of her mother, and flaunting his authority as a police officer — calling himself a “crooked cop.”
Williams' parents, Mathilda and Ian Williams Sr., testified they did not recognize the voice on the tape as their son’s.
Nazario claims to have been a victim of domestic violence for the last eight years.
In December, after the alleged incident with the handgun, Nazario left her four children by Williams and sought refuge in a safe house
where she stayed for almost two weeks.
Elroy Raymo, president of the PBA, testified that Williams is stable and dependable -— an officer who “goes above and beyond the call of duty.” Williams, a motorcycle officer, has been out of work on worker's compensation since November, Raymo said.
Williams' attorney, Joseph Mingolla II, asked Barnard to release Williams, noting his good record and the willingness of his mother to be a third-party custodian.
