BY ALISON GENDAR and JOSE MARTINEZ DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Thursday, August 17th 2006, 6:58AM
THREE BROOKLYN vice cops who allegedly busted into a massage parlor to steal a security camera were undermined by a backup video system, authorities said yesterday.
The second camera captured the April 13 break-in, in which cops allegedly made off with the massage parlor's security system.
The cops believed that there might be video footage that could have been used as evidence to clear eight suspects they had arrested on prostitution charges a day earlier.
Lt. Stephen Wong, Sgt. Kwun Tso and Officer Yuseff Hamm pleaded not guilty to burglary charges in Brooklyn Supreme Court. Their lawyers predicted the charges would be dismissed.
"We are confident this indictment is garbage," said Peter Brill, an attorney for Wong, a 14-year NYPD veteran who was the integrity control officer for the Brooklyn South vice squad.
But prosecutors said the cops staged a phony gambling raid at a business next door just to get back into the massage parlor.
"They broke the locked door and entered into the location, where they took the camera and a computer," said Assistant District Attorney Sharif Abdur-Rahim.
After being busted for running the Sunset Park massage parlor, the owner told Hamm that his business had a security camera that could clear him and his girls.
That tip led to the next day's raid "under the guise of making a gambling arrest," Abdur-Rahim said.
Prosecutors said several pieces of equipment from the massage parlor were found in Wong's desk, though Brill said all the gear had been signed out from a property clerk.
They said it was Jonathan Sims, an ex-prosecutor-turned-defense lawyer, who was representing the owner of the massage parlor and the women, who tipped off authorities to the backup camera.
The prostitution charges against Sims' clients have been dropped, authorities said.
It's a lesson, Sims said, that some cops will go to "great lengths to make sure their cases are not dismissed."
