NEW YORK, Dec. 19 (UPI) -- The New York man famous as the "subway vigilante" says he has rejected a plea deal that would have kept him out of jail on a misdemeanor marijuana charge.
Bernie Goetz, 66, called the charges against him "too much baloney" in rejecting an offer for 10 days community service on a charge he sold marijuana to an undercover police officer, the New York Daily News reported Wednesday.
Goetz was thrust into national headlines in 1984 when he claimed he shot four black teenagers on a New York subway because he thought they were going to rob him.
"I think there's too much baloney, there's too much B.S.," Goetz said after a hearing in which he rejected the offer by the Manhattan district attorney's office.
"This type of hysterical war on crime, which I helped start 30 years ago, is just no longer appropriate," he added.
During the hearing, Goetz claimed a young female undercover officer coerced him into selling her $30 worth of marijuana in a Nov. 1 encounter in Union Square Park.
After the alleged transaction took place, Goetz said a male officer rushed him.
"I thought I was being mugged," he told the court.
He didn't believe police assertions they didn't know who they were dealing with before they arrested him.
"The squirrels, the police, everybody knows me, " he said. "I'm skeptical of that."
