actual subhead: Attack of the Killer Lesbians

only in new york, kids

GAL'S GROWL: HEAR ME ROAR
'PUNCHER' RAGED: 'I'M NOT A WOMAN'
By LAURA ITALIANO
FISTS OF FURY: Surveillance video shows female attackers pounding an alleged male flirter in Greenwich Village last summer.

April 13, 2007 -- "I'm not a woman!" a fist-swinging lesbian shouted as she and her six girlfriends jumped the terrified man who had dared to flirt with them, according to testimony in an unusual gay-on-straight gang-assault case yesterday.

Alleged victim Dwayne Buckle had just shouted, "Calm down, woman," as the sapphic septet surrounded him on a Greenwich Village sidewalk last August, an eyewitness told a jury yesterday.

"She was like, 'I'm not a woman! I'm a n-! I'm a man!' " tattoo and graffiti artist Louis Barak testified of the only "dialogue" he could remember from the predawn beat-down at Sixth Avenue and West 4th Street.

"It stuck out in my mind, because it was pretty bizarre."

Of the original seven women arrested in the melee - all of them from Newark, N.J. - four went on trial in Manhattan Supreme Court this week.

The three others pleaded guilty and are serving six-month jail terms for attempted assault.

Buckle - a 29-year-old film freelancer from Queens who admits he goaded the woman on with taunts of "Elephant!" and "You look like a man!" - suffered numerous cuts and bruises, plus knife gashes to the abdomen, leading to an added charge of attempted murder against accused defendant Patreese Johnson, 20.

Johnson, as well as co-defendants Venice Brown, 19, Terraine Dandridge, 20, and Renata Hill, 25, are all fighting first-degree gang-assault charges that could get them from three to 25 years in prison.

In countering that Buckle was the aggressor, defense lawyers have pointed to video-surveillance footage showing him with his hands around the throat of one woman.

At another point he angrily waves around a handful of his alleged attackers' hair extentions.

The case is so unsettling that on the eve of opening statements, one juror asked for more information on what kind of "gang" was involved, telling the judge that while he was certain he would remain impartial, "I would want to know in order to protect my family."

Oddly, the concern prompted Justice Edward McLaughlin to complain that the juror, Bruce Nussbaum, apparently feared danger "from an organized group of violent lesbians" - and not only kicked him off the panel, but essentially banished him to purgatory for the duration of the trial.

Nussbaum, an assistant managing editor at Business Week magazine, must now sit in the courthouse's Central Jury Room from 9:45 a.m. until 4:45 p.m. every day court is in session as punishment - or face up to 30 days jail - because he "failed to reveal certain information" during jury selection, according to the judge's order against him.

The jettisoned juror declined to comment, except to say he has filed a complaint against the judge with the Commission on Judicial Conduct. The judge did not immediately return calls for comment.

In still more trial turmoil yesterday, prosecutor Sharon Laveson complained that throughout two days of testimony by Buckle and Barak, defense lawyers were "smirking," "smiling" and doing "quite a bit of gesticulating."

"One of counsel was sitting in the front row, referring to the witness as a 'meathead' in full voice," the prosecutor complained angrily. It was not clear to which witness' testimony she referred.

The judge told the adversaries to play nice, and the trial continued.