2 CBP Officers Acquitted Of Newark Airport ‘Rape Table’ Charges

NEWARK, NJ — A jury has acquitted two former U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers who were accused of assaulting a pair of their fellow workers in a series of weird, abusive hazing rituals at Newark Airport, reports say.

Parmenio I. Perez, 40, of Hawthorne, and Michael A. Papagni, 32, of Staten Island, New York, were charged by indictment in June 2018 with forcibly assaulting, impeding, intimidating and interfering with two fellow CBP officers while on duty.

The accused officers allegedly held the others down on what they called a "rape table" in an office on the second floor of Terminal C at Newark Airport and rubbed on them in simulated sex acts, prosecutors previously said.

Perez and Pagagni have since been acquitted on all charges, NBC New York reported Thursday.

Attorneys for Papagni and Perez argued that any physical contact was merely “horseplay,” and never rose to the level of assault. “We’re thrilled that the jury saw this for what it was,” Papagni’s lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, told the New York Post.

A third accused officer, Tito Catota, 38, of Lyndhurst, pleaded guilty to the same charges in June 2018, NBC New York reported.

Perez, Papagni and Catota were originally arrested and charged by complaint in September 2017.

• See related article: Weird, Abusive Hazing Took Place At Newark Airport, Customs Officers Say

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