By —Tom Tracy
Officials from the Kings County District Attorney’s office said that they are “looking into” disturbing allegations that a headline-grabbing story of a Brighton Beach man mocking a midget neighbor may have been fabricated. Weeks after 40-year-old Joseph Izzo of Brighton 3rd Street and his wife Elizabeth pled guilty to hate crime and menacing charges for their allegedly hurtful comments against 3’8” neighbor Debra Shea, Shea’s 3’6” daughter has come forward, telling the New York Post that her mother paid her to lie. “The truth is, my mother paid me $500 to say Joey and Liz did these things to us,” Concelean “Corie” Pegues told reporters. “I’m talking about it now because I feel bad that I had to lie.” Pegues’ comments dropped a bombshell in the oddball story, where Izzo was charged with drawing a yellow line on the sidewalk and encouraging Shea and Peques to “Follow the yellow brick road.” Last April, Peques claimed that Izzo allegedly called her a “low life n***er” and a “little bitch.” He also allegedly told Pegues, a junior at Lincoln High School, that she should “watch her back,” threatened to kill her and started to sing, “Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it’s off to work we go!” – making reference to the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, according to the report. Peques claimed that she made up the allegations because her mother was funneling her money. But the secret came out last week after Peques was thrown out of her mother’s home because Shea does not like her new boyfriend, James Timmerman. During a loud argument on December 26, cops were called and Peques was arrested for breaking a glass table, according to official reports. Shea’s boyfriend was also arrested for allegedly beating up Peques’ boyfriend. Peques told the New York Post that Shea was the one who broke the table and proudly showed reporters the order of protection that she had reportedly filed against her mother. Shea told reporters that she did not make up her story against Izzo. “I’m sticking to my story,” she said. A spokesperson from the Kings County District Attorney office said that they were re-visit the case in light of recent news, but would not comment further. A law enforcement source, however, does not believe that the charges would be dropped against Izzo, since the allegations that Peques made were not part of the indictment filed against Izzo. “She [Peques] didn’t lie to the police or prosecutors, she lied to the New York Post,” the source said.
