Tyrone Jeffreys, 29, has been incarcerated since May. Maureen Picozzi, his ex-girlfriend and the mother of his child, says she lied to police about the incident that led to his arrest.
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Ronnie Polaneczky: Spare our wallets: Call your therapist, not 9-1-1
I NEVER imagined my duties at the Daily News would include providing couples' counseling.
But there I was, on a three-way phone call this week with Maureen Picozzi, who lives in Wissinoming Park, and Tyrone Jeffreys, who's locked up at the city's House of Corrections.
I'd received a letter from Jeffreys, 29, asking for help.
In May, Picozzi, 27, told cops that Jeffreys - her ex-boyfriend and father of her child - had broken into her house, screamed at her, then taken her keys and car without permission. Police arrested Jeffreys, who has been incarcerated ever since, unable to post 10 percent of his $50,000 bail.
The thing is, Picozzi now says her story isn't true. She told me that she'd lent Jeffreys her Ford Crown Victoria, so he could look for work. When he returned it, they got into one of their huge arguments. Exasperated, she said she concocted her story to get Jeffreys "out of my hair."
This isn't the first time, Picozzi told me, that she called the cops on Jeffreys, on pretenses that "weren't always true."
A few years ago, Picozzi said, she accused him of rape. He got locked up. The charges were dropped. They reconciled.
Another time, she told me, she said Jeffreys had assaulted her. He got locked up. The charges were dropped. They reconciled.
And in January, she got a restraining order against Jeffreys - but kept in touch with him anyway.
"I said he abused me," said Picozzi, who's between jobs right now. "I was sick of him coming around whenever he wanted."
Both of them figure that, in the last six years or so, Picozzi has called 9-1-1 "maybe 10 times" to report crimes by Jeffreys - "some happened, some didn't," she said.
His arrest record appears to support the couple's contention that Picozzi has used 9-1-1 as a relationship-management tool.
Is it any mystery that our courts are clogged?
What irks Jeffreys is that the District Attorney's Office has yet to drop the current charges, even though Picozzi refuted them in a letter to the court, in June. She also tried to recant on the witness stand during Jeffreys' preliminary hearing, in July.
But the judge stopped the proceedings, ordering that Picozzi be appointed a Fifth Amendment lawyer to advise her of her rights against self-incrimination.
Jeffreys won't get another shot before a judge until his next hearing, Sept. 24. By then, he will have spent more than four months behind bars for things Picozzi said didn't happen the way she'd originally reported.
"So," I asked Jeffreys, "when you get out of jail, are you finally done with Maureen?"
"It's over," he said forcefully.
"And you, Maureen?" I asked.
"He's a good dad," she said. "But we're done."
