By CAROLYN SALAZAR and LUKAS I. ALPERT
Last updated: 9:55 am
June 29, 2008
Posted: 4:14 am
June 29, 2008
It didn't take long for hulking hoopster Miladin Kovacevic's pals to realize that they were in a world of trouble.
As the brutish SUNY-Binghamton basketball player and his friends drove from the Rathskeller bar, the scene of his alleged beating of fellow student Bryan Steinhauer, the scrawny victim slipped into a coma.
Officers responding to the May 4 incident thought he was at death's door.
"Sanel, why did you do that? He didn't even touch me!" a sobbing Melissa Cartagena screamed in the car at her boyfriend, Sanel Softic, according to one of several detailed statements in an 80-page police report obtained by The Post.
Softic replied: "I don't care. He touched your ass."
Kovacevic then told everyone to shut up.
"It doesn't matter. It happened," he said, according to a statement from friend Emir Karic. "Don't talk about it. We'll see what happens tomorrow."
The trio, along with Karic and another woman, then drove to Softic's house.
Meanwhile, across town, with Steinhauer's skull cracked and his brain bleeding, Binghamton Police-shift supervisor Sgt. John Ryan wrote in his report: "EMS opinion of injuries and condition was that death was a strong possibility."
Pals of Kovacevic, the 6-foot-9, 260-pound Serb charged in the near-fatal beating, quickly blamed the victim in their statements to the cops.
They claimed that the 135-pound Steinhauer started the fight by groping Cartagena, head-butting her boyfriend, and taking a swing at the towering Kovacevic, according to police reports.
Kovacevic's co-defendants and their pals insisted there was no trouble until Steinhauer grabbed the buttocks of the sexy sophomore, whose Facebook profile is adorned with dozens of provocative pictures - including one of her holding a penis-shaped cake and a condom.
"Melissa had her back to him, and he was getting very close to her," Softic, who is also charged in the beating, told the police right after the fight.
"I stepped between them and said, 'What the hell are you doing? This is my girlfriend! Get the f- - - out of here!" said Softic, 21.
But Steinhauer clenched his fists and twice yelled, "You don't f- - -ing know me!" before butting his head into the taller Softic's face, bloodying his nose, according to Softic's statement.
