begging laws unconstitional Original Article Beggar gets change Wins suit forcing city to lay off freeloaders By ELVA RODRIGUEZ, ROBERT GEARTY and TRACY CONNOR DAILY NEWS WRITERS Eddie Wise, looking for tips, helps woman with purchase outside Sears on E. 189th St. in Bronx. Wise displays tips made from helping customers carry purchases to their cars. He may be the bane of the Bronx - but Eddie Wise is a hero to panhandlers across the city. The 43-year-old freeloader scored a victory in federal court yesterday when the city admitted it wrongly prosecuted him and scores of others for begging for change. As a result of his class-action lawsuit, New York cops and judges were warned to lay off panhandlers who aren't disturbing the peace - and Wise stands to win damages. "I did what I had to do because I'm tired of getting locked up," Wise told the Daily News as he scrounged for tips outside a Sears on E. 189th St. in the Bronx. "The police need to stop harassing people. They need to catch the real criminals." But cops say Wise is a criminal - with 29 convictions on his record not related to panhandling - including felony busts for assault and possession of crack cocaine. And shopkeepers around Fordham University call him a menace. "The college girls are scared of him. They'll usually wait inside 10 to 15 minutes because they're afraid when they go outside he'll harass them," said Vilson Beqiri, owner of University Grocery on Fordham Rd. "I've had to call the police on him a few times," Beqiri said. The problem is Wise has been convicted seven times since 2002 under a broad anti-panhandling law that was actually declared unconstitutional in 1992. Under current laws, only panhandlers who engage in "aggressive" behavior can be busted for loitering and soliciting on the streets. After his last panhandling arrest, Wise said he dug up the business card of a Legal Aid lawyer who represented him in a robbery case several years ago. She put him in touch with attorney Matthew Brinckerhoff, who filed a class-action suit against police and prosecutors, using Wise as the lead plaintiff. The suit claims at least 140 people were improperly charged in 2003 and 2004, most of them in the Bronx. At a hearing in Manhattan federal court yesterday, city lawyers capitulated immediately, noting that Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson had already admitted to using the outdated law to charge panhandlers. "I guess they're about 12 years late," Judge Shira Scheindlin quipped. She ordered that a notice go out to city judges reminding them only aggressive panhandling can be prosecuted, and a similar message went out to every police precinct in the city. Wise wasn't in court. He was too busy manning the back exit of Sears, offering to carry customers' packages to their cars to supplement the $90 a day he claims to make from panhandling. He denied being aggressive in his approach. "I've been here for five years - nobody complained," he said. "How can I be mean if I ask somebody nicely?" Wise, who spends nights crashing at a friend's pad, said he hasn't worked a regular job in years and prefers the freedom of mooching on street corners. "I don't need nobody's boss," he said. "I want to be my own boss, do my own hours, make my own money." With Alison Gendar Originally published on June 11, 2005