NYC woman exercises right to go topless in public
Bra-vo! $29G in topless suit
June 17th 2007
A woman who was busted for walking around topless has won a $29,000 civil rights settlement from the city, her attorney said yesterday.
Jill Coccaro, 27, an East Village artist also known as Phoenix Feeley, was arrested two years ago when she went for a shirtless stroll on a hot night on Delancey St. on the lower East Side.
But unbeknownst to the cops who charged her with indecent exposure, Coccaro has the right - affirmed by a 1992 state appeals court ruling - to bare her pierced pair anywhere in New York, her lawyer Jeffrey Rothman said.
"It was a civil rights settlement," he said. "We hope the police learn a lesson and respect the rights of women to go topless."
Rothman said that in addition to the bogus arrest, cops yanked his client by her hair and rendered her nearly bottomless when they ripped her pants during the collar.
A week after her Aug. 4, 2005, arrest, Coccaro was joined by about a dozen women bearing nearly all at a protest of her arrest.
"We have to affirm a women's right to be top-free," Coccaro told the Daily News.
Kerry Burke
