NYPD Officer who Killed Anthony Baez in Choke-Hold Case Launches Web Site

Francis Livoti, who spent seven years in federal prison for the 1994 choking death of Anthony Baez, 29, is now helping teach martial arts as the CEO of Genesis Diversified Services- boasting he fought crime with his "bare hands." A disgraced ex-cop whose illegal choke hold led to a Bronx man's death has found a new career - training students in the art of self-defense. "He shouldn't be out here giving classes," raged Baez's mother, Iris. "He should be locked up in a cell somewhere. If he didn't know what he was doing when he murdered my son than how could he teach anybody else?" On Dec. 22, 1994, Livoti choked Baez, an asthmatic, to death after a football the man was tossing around with his brothers outside their University Heights home accidentally hit the officer's police car. Livoti was cleared of criminally negligent homicide in a 1996 trial, but the volatile cop was found guilty of violating Baez's civil rights in a 1998 federal trial. The city awarded the Baez family $3 million in a wrongful death settlement.
After being released from prison last year, Livoti began his new business. "Don't have time for formalized Martial Arts Training?" its Web site reads. "We have the solution. We will teach you quick, clean, easy to learn and retain combat moves that will give you an edge when your safety is at risk." [MORE]