Barry and Cheryl McCormack stood around their dining room table, cluttered with cherished items they had accrued over three years of marriage.

“Everything that we own we’re trying to sell,” said Cheryl McCormack. “Just to make money to pay our bills.”

The McCormacks’ lives were turned upside down last July when a drunkard outside of McGinn’s Tavern in Woodlawn knocked Barry McCormack unconscious for eight weeks.

They say justice has eluded them after the defendant, Cornelius O’Shea, pled guilty to misdemeanor assault in June, and a judge gave him three years’ probation instead of a year in prison. O’Shea has a rap sheet and, in May, was sentenced for a felony DWI in Westchester County.

Meanwhile, four brain surgeries later and a fifth one coming up, Barry McCormack has to wear a helmet 2-4/7 and cannot resume work as a project manager.

He and his wife partly attribute what they see as the lax culture of the Bronx district attorney’s office – which declines to prosecute more cases than other DAs in the city, according to a Daily News probe last month – to the “unfair” outcome of their case.

“What really sickened me to the pit of my stomach was the judge said [to O'Shea], ‘If you get a probationary sentence, your normal working life will not be affected,’” recalled Barry McCormack. “And me not being able to look after my wife and two children properly, and this guy walking through the streets…God help the next person he gets to.”

Steven Reed, spokesman for the Bronx DA’s office, said this specific instance had nothing to do with declining to prosecute a case.

“It was fully prosecuted, and there was a full disposition and conviction,” said Reed. “There would be no need to go to trial if the defendant takes a plea.”

A lawyer for the Yonkers couple is in the process of filing a civil suit. Until then, the McCormacks are living on food stamps and the charity of others. Barry McCormack’s unemployment payments have stopped, and his wife is also out of a job since she needs back and neck surgery. They have two young children, Patrick, 3, and Aiden, 2.

“It feels like any day now we could end up just sleeping in our car, because we don’t have enough money to pay our rent,” said Cheryl McCormack through tears. “We’ve had hope for a year, and it doesn’t seem like anything is going to get better.”

For Barry McCormack, who used to travel frequently for golf tournaments and play with his two active sons, all he wants is justice.

“Basically, [O'Shea] has gotten away with it, and we’re trying to get on and push forward, but…” he trailed off. “The injustice we feel is there.”

To contact or donate to the McCormacks, email Cheryl McCormack at chernic12@ aol.com.

There’s another angry rally planned for lower Manhattan Tuesday – this one focused on hundreds of city workers scheduled to be laid off at the end of the week.

Labor leaders, frustrated Department of Education employees and their supporters will vent their rage outside City Hall from 4p.m. to 6 p.m.

And now it looks like some of the Occupy Wall Street protesters will be heading over to join the crowd.

While I’m not sure if the Wall Street “zombies” will make a guest appearance, here’s what we do know: More than 700 people who work in school support-staff positions are losing their jobs.

That includes school aides and parent and community coordinators who, in general, are some of the lowest-paid people in the city educational system.

More than 75% of the workers being laid off make less than ,000 per year and work 20 hours per week, according to District Council 37, which represents the employees.

Local 372 President Santos Crespo pointed out that many of the schools impacted by the cuts are in some of the city’s poorest communities, including Brownsville, East New York and the South Bronx.

School officials have said principals, faced with budget cuts, decided to cut these jobs to close yawning gaps. Teaching positions, threatened during budget negotiations, were saved.

DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts said the union tried to come up with other ways to find savings in order to prevent the layoffs, but those negotiations with the city were unsuccessful.

“These layoffs are as unnecessary as they are outrageous,” she said.

L.I. fund-raiser for fallen Bravest

Friends, family and colleagues of NYPD Detective Adam Frasse are hosting a fund-raiser on Oct. 15 at Mulcahy’s in Wantagh, L.I., from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Frasse, who joined the NYPD in 1987, suffered a heart attack while on the job in 2009. He is now in a persistent vegetative state, receiving round the clock care at a nursing home in Jericho.

The NYPD veteran’s career includes stints in the Major Case Vice Unit, Transit District 1, the Central Park Precinct, Brooklyn North Narcotics and the Firearms Investigation Unit.

Proceeds from the fund-raiser will help Frasse’s wife, Kara, and his two sons, 11-year-old Scott and 8-year-old Jay.

Tickets are and include open bar, food and entertainment. For more information, visit www.allforadam.org.

Honoring those who served

The New York City Police Department’s U.S. Navy Association is holding its Annual Remembrance Day Ceremony on Oct.14 at 11 a.m. at 1 Police Plaza in Manhattan.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, a former Marine, will participate in the ceremony, which will pay tribute to veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars.

Rear Adm. Sean Buck, Commander Patrol Forces and Reconnaissance Forces 5th and 7th Fleet, is the guest speaker.

Richard Koehler, former Correction commissioner and NYPD chief of personnel, will receive the Police Officer Stephen Driscoll Memorial Award.

Lt. Michael Murphy, the distinguished Medal of Honor recipient who was killed in Afghanistan in 2005, will be remembered. All veterans and their families are invited to attend. For more information, visit nypdusnavy.com.

lcolangelo@nydailynews.com

Exclusive

Bronx narcotics cops angry over a massive ticket-fixing probe by the Bronx district attorney’s office are starting to bypass county prosecutors in an act of defiance, the Daily News has learned.

Some officers have taken a handful of major drug cases to Bridget Brennan, the city’s special narcotics prosecutor, instead of dealing with District Attorney Robert Johnson, sources said.

“The feeling is, ‘Why go to them [with a good case] if you can get around it?’” a source involved in narcotics investigations said of Johnson’s office. “There’s some bad blood.”

The number of Bronx drug cases being prosecuted by Brennan’s office was not immediately available, but one cop said they include a case county prosecutors would have been “chomping at the bit” over.

“It’s just a case here or there … more symbolic than anything,” the cop said.

Spokesmen for Brennan’s office as well as for the district attorney’s office had no immediate comment.

Narcotics cops are among the more than 530 NYPD employees who were caught on wiretapped phone calls during the two-year-long probe, sources said, which could account for their anger.

The investigation, which was originally hatched by the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau, has been met with fierce criticism from cops and their unions.

Twenty-two indictments in the case could be announced as early as this week, 17 of them for cops.

“They shouldn’t expect things to be business as usual when they’re trying to put [cops] away,” said one prosecutor not involved in the probe.

Cops in several of the city’s police unions said they plan to turn out in droves when the 17 accused cops are arraigned.

Some are also planning direct protests against the ticket-fixing probe.

Union officials have said they plan to make public the names of well-known New Yorkers who had tickets fixed, in order to show the “hypocrisy” of the investigation. With Alison Gendar

kdeutsch@nydailynews.com

Twenty-five years ago, the streets of Norwood were packed with Irish pubs.

Eamonn McDwyer can name more than 20 of them, from Murphy and Maloney to the Bainbridge Cafe. And in those days, he recalled, they were all full.

Today, only his bar is left: McDwyer’s Pub.

It became Norwood’s last surviving Irish bar last winter when McMahon’s down the block on E. 204th St. poured its last pint.

As the neighborhood changed, its Irish residents moved out and the bars went with them.

“One by one, they folded up,” said McDwyer, 74. “The rents got too high. Business went down.”

The Italians and Jews of McDwyer’s youth have departed, too, replaced by newcomers from Asia and Latin America. Even McDwyer himself bought a house in Yonkers a few years ago.

On Bainbridge Ave. near E. 204th St. – a strip that once housed purveyors of Irish beer, soda bread and chocolate – store owners now hawk plantains and fried chicken, along with subscriptions to Bangladeshi television stations.

McDwyer’s Pub, with its crumbling faux-brick facade and crusty clientele, has become a relic, but remains a haven for a handful of longtime neighborhood residents.

“It’s like a sanctuary. I can come here; I can feel at ease,” said Billy Gallagher, 55, a retired scaffolding worker. “It’s either this or sit at home by myself.”

Norwood’s Irish history dates back to the early 1900s, when immigrants came north to build the nearby New York Botanical Garden.

A second surge occurred in the ’80s and early ’90s, as the American economy boomed and Ireland’s sagged. That influx, though, obscured the fact that Norwood’s Irish population had been in a slow decline since the mid-20th century, according to Bronx Historian Lloyd Ultan.

The revival was short-lived: The Irish economy exploded into the “Celtic Tiger” in the mid-’90s, and many of the newcomers returned home. Their absence from the neighborhood was conspicuous.

Census figures show that the number of Norwood residents claiming Irish ancestry declined from some 6,000 in 1990 to 2,100 in 2000. The Census Bureau’s American Communities survey shows that by 2009, there were only 1,400 left.

“The young people went back home … it was a pretty fast transformation,” Ultan said. “Once they had gone, then it becomes evident: ‘Where are the Irish?’ There are still Irish people living there, but nowhere near the numbers that were there before.”

Eamonn McDwyer, though, is holding fast.

He emigrated from Ireland in 1959, and worked in the restaurant business in Manhattan. In 1966, he said, he paid ,000 for the “Gay Doom,” the bar on the corner of E. 204th and Hull Ave. and turned it into McDwyer’s Pub.

More than four decades later, he’s still here, mixing drinks behind the bar with equal parts alcohol, irritation, and profanity-laced humor.

McDwyer said his last original customer, Paddy Brennan, died last month, but there are still plenty of regulars who show up for Friday night karaoke, and football on the weekend.

Puerto Ricans and African-Americans are just as likely to sidle up to the bar, where only one Irish beer, Guinness, is on tap.

To McDwyer, the demographics make no difference.

“It’s like a little UN,” he said. “As long as I get to get out of bed, come here, I’m happy.”

A weathered memorial of candles and withered roses sits near the entrance of 180 W. 167th St.

A cardboard sign reads: “In Memory of Francisco. We love you,” with a photo of a smiling man who was stabbed to death there three weeks ago.

“He was very caring, loving…If you needed anything, he was there,” said neighbor Margie Zorilla, 28, in tears.

On Sept. 6, Zorilla saw her friend, Francisco Osorio, distraught after a “big argument” with his boyfriend, Victor Sanchez. Two days later, she found Osorio dead in his apartment. Police arrested Sanchez for the murder.

The tragedy spotlights the largely unspoken problem within the gay community: domestic violence, which persists even amid the jubilation over the state’s legalization of same-sex marriage and the end to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the military.

The NYC Anti-Violence Project (AVP) reports that two fatal domestic violence incidents involving gays have occurred this year, that of Osorio and a man in Harlem.

“Prior to the marriage act, domestic violence was the dirty little secret of the LGBT community,” said Sharon Stapel, AVP executive director, who added that gay men are less likely to report abuse.

According to the group, 58, or nearly 20%, of the 319 cases of LGBT domestic violence citywide in 2010 were from the Bronx. In Brooklyn, the number was 87, or nearly 30%.

In the Bronx, the matter is complicated by a large number of gay men living on the “down low,” said Dirk McCall, executive director of the Bronx Community Pride Center.

“People are embarrassed that it’s happening to them. They’re alone, and you don’t have the family support in these situations,” McCall said.

Domestic Violence Coordinator Lisa Haile Selassie, of St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Crime Victims Treatment Center, said she sees situations like this all the time.

“By the time a survivor has gotten to us, it’s gotten pretty extreme,” she said. “They struggle with the shame because men can’t be battered.”

One 29-year-old client who requested anonymity said he was on his way to becoming another fatality.

“Things started escalating, and he would hit me,” he said of his partner. “The big one was when I got sliced with a knife in my arm to my back.”

He said he got no support from law enforcement or family.

“As gay men, we are not protected. They don’t understand,” he said.

“Isolation is a very powerful tool,” said Stapel. “The sense that you’re all by yourself is the most devastating aspect of it.”

For help, call the AVP domestic violence hotline at (212) 714-1141.

Despite repeated promises to fix the problem-plagued Bronx Hall of Justice, the relatively new courthouse has fallen into an even deeper state of disrepair in the past year.

The hulking four-year-old building at 265 E. 161st St. turned out to be a “lemon” because of shoddy construction and problems with its electrical infrastructure, sources said.

In December, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services vowed to finalize plans for opening the courthouse’s shuttered underground parking garage. It remains closed because of fears it will collapse.

The department also promised to work toward opening the building’s courtyard. The sprawling, treelined area was meant to be the architectural centerpiece of the structure, but has never opened because of safety concerns.

Nine months later, nothing has changed.

And new issues have bedeviled the courthouse this year:

• Glitches in the computerized lighting system caused several blackouts last month, leading some judges to evacuate their courtrooms.

• Elevators routinely break down and close on passengers’ arms and legs.

• The escalators are regularly out of service, leaving elevators packed to capacity.

• Blaring fire alarms sound at least once a week for no reason.

• A sixth-floor roof leak has been gushing for months, flooding the hallway and causing mold to grow outside courtrooms.

“It’s still the shabbiest, most poorly built, least maintained courthouse in the city,” one court employee said.

“The worst part is, no matter how much we complain about broken escalators or elevators, nothing gets done.”

In response to inquiries from the Daily News, a Citywide Administrative Services Department spokeswoman said inspectors would be sent to investigate the faulty elevators.

Spokeswoman Julianne Cho said repair work is being scheduled for the sixth-floor leak. She said the building’s lighting system has been fixed to avoid blackouts.

Cho blamed the continued closure of the garage and courtyard on the project contractor.

“The contractor who built the garage was required to redo substantial portions of work deemed to be defective,” she said.

“As a result, the opening of both the garage and the adjacent courtyard have been delayed.”

She did not say when either will open. The construction manager, Bovis Lend Lease of New York, used more than a dozen contractors to erect the building.

Responsibility shifted to Hill International of Marlton, N.J., for the final phase. Neither company returned calls.

City Councilman Oliver Koppell (D-Bronx) said his repeated calls for an investigation into the project have fallen on deaf ears.

“It’s just disgraceful that a building that costs 1 million has had so many problems,” Koppell said. “It’s terrible.”

kdeutsch@nydailynews.com

EXCLUSIVE

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Cops are hunting for two men who choked and robbed two livery cab drivers in the Bronx and stabbed a third driver.

One of the suspects, described as a 6-foot-tall black man in his 20s, hailed a livery cab near Boston Rd. and Allerton Ave. on Sept. 18 about 10:45 p.m., cops said.

When the 25-year-old driver pulled over, the goon wrapped something around the driver’s neck and held an object to his side, demanding cash. The robber fled with an unknown amount of money.

Barely 24 hours later, the same suspect, choked another livery cab driver near Boston Rd. and Waring Ave. about 12:30 a.m. on Sept. 20 and demanded his dough.
 
When the 49-year-old driver tried to wrestle free, the robber stabbed the driver in the back, jumped behind the wheel and struck a parked car, police said. He then fled towards E. 233rd St. The driver suffered minor injuries.

Three days later, the same suspect, joined by a second assailant, described as a 38-year-old Hispanic man, 6-foot and weighing about 185 pounds with short black hair and a goatee, hailed a livery cab at White Plains Rd. and Pelham Parkway about 9:30 p.m., cops said.

The two men took the cab to Magenta Ave. where they again tried to choke him by wrapping something around the driver’s neck and while demanding cash, police said. One of the creeps snatched the cab’s security camera before they both fled with the cash.

Anyone with any information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS (8477) or text tips to 274637 (CRIMS) then enter TIP577.

bpaddock@nydailynews.com

The famous Yankees fan who caught Derek Jeter’s 3,000th hit was at the Stadium last night for his first playoff game – and hopes he’ll be returning for the World Series.

“I hope they can go all the way,” said Christian Lopez, 23, who entered Yankees lore after catching the home run Jeter hit over the left field wall in July.

“I’ve never been to a World Series game or any playoff game,” Lopez said before yesterday’s game against the Detroit Tigers. “I’m super pumped.”

Lopez’s date with destiny came as he was sitting in the bleachers when the Yankee shortstop drove a 3-2 pitch toward him. Lopez fell on the bouncing ball and then his father, Raul, threw himself atop his son to protect him – and the ball – from the surging crowd.

The super fan was taken to meet Jeter after the game and instead of asking for a massive payment – one he surely could have received on the sports memorabilia market – he simply turned the ball over to the future Hall of Famer.

That gracious gesture made him a household name – and earned him four tickets for every Yankee game left this season, including the playoffs.

Lopez took his girlfriend and her parents to Friday night’s game, but he never got to watch a play from his seat in the Champions Suite.

As the game began, the group went to grab some food and by the time they returned to go to their seats in the second inning, Mother Nature sent the rain.

“We were just heading to the seats,” he said. “It just started pouring.”

Lopez, who now lives in Astoria and works for Modell’s, says his celebrity hasn’t worn off with fans, who still recognize him and want to take pictures with him.

“People are still recognizing me,” he said. “It’s still pretty cool.”

He is also treated like a celebrity at the Stadium, where he waited impatiently for the resumption of Game 1 of the American League Division Series.

The night’s forecast called for more rain, however, leaving the fate of the game in doubt – and creating the remote possibility that the teams may have to play a rare playoff doubleheader today.

With Jonathan Lemire

mfeeney@nydailynews.com

Relatives of a Brooklyn woman who was killed by a stray bullet when a gun battle erupted between cops and her ex-con neighbor plan to sue the city, their lawyer said Friday.

Denise Gay, 56, died last month while sitting on her Crown Heights stoop on Labor Day. Her loved ones believe she was struck by a police bullet.

“Police officers shot 73 bullets,” said family lawyer John Nonnenmacher. “They were shooting at someone who was two buildings away.”

Nonnenmacher filed a notice of claim yesterday, indicating an intent to sue. He said he has vowed to find out which officer fired the fatal shot.

“They took my mother, who was an angel, away from me,” said Tashmaya Gay, daughter of the slain home health worker.

The officers’ target, Leroy Webster, had just fatally shot another man and injured two cops in the shootout before he was taken down. The NYPD has ruled out Webster’s pistol as the weapon that killed Gay but said they could not determine whether the fatal bullet came from a police gun.

An octogenarian Bronx grandfather viciously attacked by a mugger says the crook jumped him from behind and repeatedly punched him in the face.

Jose Rodriguez, 81, was on his way home from a shopping center Thursday when the bandit grabbed him in a chokehold in the lobby of his Parkchester apartment building about 4 p.m.

“He came from behind and grabbed me by the neck…and said, ‘Give me your money,’” Rodriguez told the Daily News Saturday.

“I was going to give him what he wanted. I wasn’t going to put up a fight, but he punched me in my face. I don’t know why he did that.”

“I tried to protect myself,” added Rodriguez, sporting a large shiner over his right eye. “I covered my face. He just kept hitting me and hitting me.”

The heartless crook ran off with Rodriguez’s gold cross necklace and wallet containing 30 bucks and credit cards.

Bleeding from his right eye, the 5-foot-9 Rodriguez was hospitalized with minor injuries and released Thursday night.

“It was very scary,” said Rodriguez, a retired boiler room worker who has lived in the building for 35 years. “I’m 81 years old.”

Rodriguez, who has three grown children and two grandchildren, said the neighborhood has grown more dangerous in recent years.

“Everything has changed,” said Rodriguez. “I used to go get my hair cut at two or three in the morning, and I’d never have a problem. Now it’s different. These young kids don’t respect the old people like they used to.”

The suspect is believed to be between 17 and 20 years old. He was wearing a dark blue t-shirt and black sneakers and carrying a backpack, police said.

Neighbors said they were outraged the affable Rodriguez, whose wife died recently, had been assaulted.

“He’s a great man. I can’t believe this happened,” said neighbor Jennifer Lee.

“It’s insane. To jump on an elderly man? What’s happened to people? They need to catch him.”

mlysiak@nydailynews.com

The FDNY systematically discriminated against minorities in recruiting, applicant screening and the investigation of discrimination complaints, a federal judge ruled Friday.

Judge Nicholas Garaufis’ conclusion that the Vulcan Society of black firefighters had proven its claims set the stage for the appointment of a court-ordered monitor to oversee changes in the Fire Department.

Garaufis’ findings came after a three-week civil trial in Brooklyn Federal Court during which it became increasingly clear that the FDNY remains 93% white largely due to what the judge termed “an informal friends-and-family recruitment network.”

“The underrepresentation of black firefighters in the FDNY – a direct result and vestige of the city’s pattern and practice of discrimination against black firefighter candidates – is responsible for making blacks significantly less likely to apply to become New York City firefighters in the absence of a formal recruitment program,” Garaufis wrote.

The judge credited the city’s recent efforts to sign up record numbers of minority applicants for the upcoming firefighter exam. Fire officials said 48% of those who registered for the next test are people of color – almost double the 26% who took the last test in 2007.

But Garaufis strongly suggested that a permanent remedy is necessary and it must come from outside the department.

“We respectfully disagree with some of the court’s findings and are continuing to study this lengthy 81-page decision,” Georgia Pestana, a top city lawyer, said last night.

Since the U.S. Justice Department’s civil rights division filed suit against the city in 2007, Garaufis has ruled that the FDNY intentionally discriminated against minority candidates, and he threw out the results of two exams he found were illegal.

Perhaps the most controversial testimony came from the deposition of Sherry Kavaler, former assistant commissioner for human resources, about how white candidates with troubled pasts benefit from the influence of family connections in the screening process.

“You would have lieutenants and captains [contacting] the chief of department: This is the son of so and so … He’s a good guy,” Kavaler said. “He beat his wife but his wife took him back so he shouldn’t be considered a wife beater.

“You’re dealing with a lot of Irishmen who are drunks and they get into bar fights … This is boys being boys, that type of thing.”

jmarzulli@nydailynews.com

A 14-year-old Bronx boy plummeted five stories to his death Friday, when he lost his balance hanging curtains, according to cops and family.

Yohan Hernandez was standing on a chair, installing the curtains inside an apartment on Townsend Avenue near East 172nd Street in Morris Heights, about 4:30 p.m. tumbled off and fell out the open window, said his cousin who declined to identify himself.

Hernandez hit a tree on the way down and landing in a patch of grass outside the building, narrowly missing a fence, cops said.

“You can see the curtain hanging in the window,” said one cop at the scene. “He slipped and fell. There’s a branch on the ground that broke his fall and he landed. It was a pretty bad fall.”

The window was not outfitted with window guards.

Family and friends who gathered at Bronx Lebanon Hospital where he was taken remembered him as a baseball fan with a big personality.

“He was a Yankees fan. He loved his brothers. He was a clown, he made everyone laugh. He was very stylish,” said his aunt, Frenchie Figueroa, 32.