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550G award in city park arrest death BY JOHN MARZULLI DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Cezar Agapie The city paid $550,000 to settle a federal lawsuit brought by the family of a man who died of a heart attack after a violent confrontation with Parks Department enforcement officers in a Queens park, the Daily News has learned. The suit, filed in Brooklyn Federal Court, alleged that Cezar Agapie, 63, was beaten by the officers after they saw him urinating in Grover Cleveland Park on Nov. 22, 2003. A witness to the confrontation called 911 and reported "two men are beating a third" and "they're killing him," according to Paul Marx, the lawyer for Agapie's widow. "The 911 call perhaps persuaded the city that the officers' conduct was unlawful," Marx said yesterday. He said the officers, identified in the complaint as Walter Luciano and Derrick Johnson, gave contradictory accounts in their depositions of what had happened. "You'd have thought they were describing two different incidents," Marx said. For example, there were inconsistencies about where they confronted the 5-foot-8, 261-pound Agapie, disagreement over who threw the first punch and whether they had performed CPR on the stricken man before the arrival of NYPD cops, who found him handcuffed and facedown on the ground, Marx said. The suit was settled in November, less than a year after it was filed in 2004. Agapie, who owned a sign shop near the park, was pronounced dead at Wyckoff Hospital. An autopsy determined he died of a heart attack due to advanced cardiovascular disease. An investigation by the Queens district attorney's office found no evidence of criminality. Seth Eichenholtz, a lawyer for the city, defended the Parks Department officers. "Given the tragic circumstances of this case, we are pleased that we were able to reach a settlement that will hopefully give [Agapie's family] a sense of closure regarding this incident," Eichenholtz said.
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