Gregory P. Mango
Robert Linhart
Now he faces up to a year on Rikers Island -- which is not La Isla Bonita.
A Madonna-besotted former city firefighter was convicted today of resisting arrest after flailing his arms as he was busted painting love notes on giant wooden boards outside the star's Central Park West building.
"Madonna I need you," read one sign. "Tell me yes or no," read another. "If it's yes, my dream will come true. If it's no, I will go. XXX"
Robert Linhart, retired in '98 from Ladder 30 in Harlem, was just trying to express himself -- until he went over the borderline and failed to comply with police attempts to arrest him, jurors said they found.
"If she invites me," Linhart joked as he left court, when asked if he would attend the Material Girl's concerts Monday and Tuesday at Madison Square Garden.
Linhart had every right to paint his signs peaceably, but no right to resist arrest, said jurors, who only afterward learned that the kooky ex-smoke-eater's object of affection was Madonna.
"We thought that he was a little, you know, different," said juror Dr. Harry Pong, 51.
"But that doesn't matter -- he has the right to free speech," Pong added.
"I feel that his rights were violated," agreed juror Elisa Rosario, 50.
"I don't think he did anything wrong," in painting his signs and blasting loud music on the wide sidewalks of Central Park West, she said.
"He was a typical New Yorker," she said. "He was on the sidewalk painting. I give Mr. Linhart a lot of credit. He stepped up to the plate. He did not take their crap," she said of trial exhibit video of the arrest, showing a cuffed Linhart cursing out his arresting officers.
Still, prosecutors presented credible police testimony showing that once cops made the decision to arrest him on Sept. 21, 2010, he resisted by flailing his arms, the two jurors said.
Linhart was acquitted of a second charge of resisting arrest from Sept. 18, 2010 -- the arresting officers' testimony in that incident was inconsistent and not credible, the jurors said.
Defense lawyer Lawrence LaBrew said he would appeal the conviction, because Linhart had been denied the right to present a doctor's testimony showing that at the time of the second arrest, he was suffering from a torn rotator cuff in his shoulder.
The injury was caused by cops' rough treatment of Linhart during the first arrest, and was the reason Linhart couldn't move his arms and comply with police attempts to cuff him, LaBrew said.
Linhart, of Huletts Landing, NY, is such an ardent fan, he tweets under the name @madonna_stalker. "Funny, I just heard Madonna say that she supports freedom of speach," he tweeted in August. "I think that she should inform her security of her beliefs."
Ex-FDNY Madonna fan convicted in Manhattan of resisting arrest outside her UWS building
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Ex-FDNY Madonna fan convicted in Manhattan of resisting arrest outside her UWS building
