CAREER CROOK FACES MULTIPLE COUNTS OF FELONY ASSAULT

Wrong-way driver who hit NY cops faces 40 criminal charges

By Thomas Tracy and John Annese

New York Daily News
August 29, 2018

NEW YORK CITY — The career crook who rammed two police cars during on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge faces a whopping 40 criminal charges after Monday’s wild, wrong-way pursuit, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Peter Guarneri, 47, had three baggies of crack in his pocket and a suspended license when he tried to escape police in a stolen van on the nearly mile-long span during the afternoon rush hour, prosecutors said.

Police suspected Guarneri in a string of burglaries, cops said, when he hopped into a stolen 1999 Ford Econoline van in Brooklyn and headed towards the bridge.

Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authorities officers in three separate vehicles started pursuing him, and an off-duty NYPD detective, James McCullough, cut him off and stopped his Toyota Camry in front of the van, authorities said.

Guarneri rammed the Camry from behind, and refused to get out of the van, spurring one of the TBTA officer, Eddie Fung, to smash his hand through the driver’s side window, according to a criminal complaint.

He then maneuvered past McCullough’s Camry, drove all the way down to the Staten Island side of the span, pulled a U-turn, and headed back to Brooklyn.

That’s when he slammed into an unmarked Fusion carrying NYPD Officer Stephanie Mazza and Sgt. Albert Cabello, according to the complaint. He rammed their car several times, trying to power through it, then jumped out and made a final, futile run for it, prosecutors said.

Mazza, who was driving the Ford, suffered neck and back pain, while Cabello suffered a cut to his head and pain to his right knee.

Guarneri has 32 past arrests for robbery, assault, drug possession and other charges dating back to 1988, police sources said. He’s on probation for a 2016 unlicensed driving arrest in Brooklyn, and was out on $10,000 bail after a June 2017 bust in Queens for possession of stolen property and unauthorized use of a vehicle.

He was arraigned Tuesday on multiple counts of felony assault and myriad other charges, and ordered held on $200,000 bond or $100,000 bail.