Case dismissed!Charges of driving with expired auto insurance against hip-hop pioneer Ice-T were tossed by a Manhattan judge Tuesday morning after prosecutors acknowledged a DMV snafu.
"That is what I'm talking about - dismissed!" the "Law & Order: SVU" star bellowed as he strutted out of a packed courtroom.
"You appreciate that!" he said to people in the audience waiting for their cases to be called.
"Like I said from the gate, I never broke the law," Ice-T said outside the courtroom, his buxom wife Coco, dressed in a black dress and sky-high heals, close to his side.
"I had no knowledge of any suspension," he said. "That is why I was so angry."
The 52-year-old actor, whose real name is Tracy Marrow, famously vented via an Internet video after his July arrest, irking city cops - the very people he's made a career of portraying on the television drama.
"Everybody heard I called the cop a punk b----," he said on the video diatribe, referring to a statement he tweeted after his arrest.
"The reason I did that was because he pretty much was a punk b----."
Ice-T was vindicated when prosecutors yesterday told a Manhattan criminal court judge that the state Department of Motor Vehicles wrongly suspended his license in 2008 because the agency believed he'd ignored warnings to re-up his auto insurance.
But Assistant District Attorney Jessica Barron admitted Ice-T had properly surrendered his New York plates when he moved to New Jersey - something that "was not reflected in the DMV's computerized records."
"It basically turned out to be a clerical error," Ice-T explained of switching his registration to the Garden State when he moved there that year.
The actor insisted he never got any notifications from New York indicating his driving privileges has been suspended.
"The last two years, I've been driving around and then I'm in handcuffs."
"I wasn't worried one bit," said Morrow's blond wife Coco, sporting matching hot pink lipstick and toe nail polish.
Coco had her own admirers in court.
"Damn girl, you're fine," one man said.
Ice-T said he has no plans of suing. "I was just upset. You're not supposed to go to jail. The cop put me in jail that day. I said, 'You've really got to put me in?'"
"I hate courts," he said as he sauntered out in a crisp blue suit and blue and red striped tie. "I'm not coming back."
Asked where he was headed after court, Ice-T quipped: "Oh, I don't know, Disney Land."
As he left, a fan shouted "I'm down with Ice-T."
Source: NY Daily News
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