A homeless man who was allegedly abducted and beaten by a pair of Hialeah Police officers took the stand Tuesday at the trial for one of the ex-cops.
Former officer Rafael Otano is charged with kidnapping and battery during the Dec. 17, 2022 incident involving Jose Ortega-Gutierrez.
A second former officer, Lorenzo Orfila, is also charged in the incident but will be tried separately.
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Ortega-Gutierrez took the stand Tuesday during Day 2 of Otano's trial to describe the events leading up to the alleged beating.
"I go by some officers, they station their vehicles in front of the [location]," Ortega-Gutierrez testified in Spanish through an interpreter. "They approach me on foot and they get me out of the store or tent."
The officers had responded to calls that Ortega-Gutierrez had been disturbing the peace. Surveillance video showed officers escorting a handcuffed Ortega-Guitterez in the parking lot of a Hialeah shopping center, and placing him in a police cruiser.
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But instead of being arrested and taken to jail, Ortega-Gutierrez said he was kidnapped.
"They told me 'we’re going to take you for a ride' and the ride was that they took me over there to beat me up, they left me there as if I was dead and they took off and they left," he said.
A video from after the incident showed Ortega-Gutierrez with a laceration on the top of his head, his face swollen and bruised, and his clothes torn.
"They took me out. They tossed me head-first on the floor. And they started hitting me and they were hitting me while I was handcuffed," he testified.
Otano's defense tried to discredit Ortega-Gutierrez as a criminal with a history of lying.
Otano's attorney, Michael Pizzi, insisted Otano wasn't there during the arrest of Ortega-Gutierrez, blaming a faulty GPS system that allegedly shows the path to a remote area where Ortega-Gutierrez was allegedly beaten.
Both officers were fired after the charges were filed against them earlier this year.
Ortega-Gutierrez was expected to be back on the stand Wednesday.
