His case melted away nearly as quickly as his snowball.
A wannabe social-media influencer arrested for hurling a snowball at an NYPD officer in Washington Square Park will have his criminal record scrubbed if he does 20 hours of community service, according to a plea deal hashed out Friday.
Gusmane Coulibaly, 28, pled down to a harassment “violation” – the legal equivalent of a parking ticket – after the NYPD initially tried to have him charged him with felony assault for hitting an officer in the face with the frozen blob during the viral February fracas in Manhattan.
The charge will be wiped from Coulibaly’s record if he completes 20 hours of community service for the Parks Department, according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which said in court that the outcome was “appropriate and consistent with this defendant’s conduct that day.”
The plea deal comes months after a concerned bystander called 911 while watching a massive snowball fight break out during an epic blizzard Feb. 23. Video of the scene showed several arriving cops being pelted with snowballs. Coulibaly was arrested days later after the NYPD circulated photos of him in the media.
The “3rd Annual Sidetalk Snowball Fight” appears to have been organized by the chaotic New York City-based Instagram show Sidetalk and was also advertised by other social-media accounts.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch slammed the snowball throwers as “disgraceful” and “criminal” in a statement afterward, while the Police Benevolent Association, the city’s largest union repping NYPD cops, blasted the icy episode as a “despicable attack” on police.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani urged the public not to hurl snow at police but was accused of downplaying the incident by calling it “kids throwing snowballs at NYPD officers.”
“Treat them with respect. If anyone’s catching a snowball, it’s me,” Hizzoner wrote on X, a response that critics called flippant.
Coulibaly “regrets his decision to throw a snowball at the police,” his lawyer, George Vomvolakis, told The Post on Friday.
“His intention was never to be disrespectful, but he understands that what he did may have been disrespectful,” his lawyer said.
Coulibaly has separately been arrested twice in the past year for terrorizing unsuspecting New Yorkers in alleged robberies – which his lawyer claimed are in fact part of his “prank” social-media videos where he claims that people owe him money and films their reactions.
The Bronx native was arrested Feb. 6 for allegedly trying to rob a confused subway rider in his home borough, but the charges were tossed after Coulibaly maintained that he was just joking around to make his videos, Vomvolakis said.
The oddball clout-chaser was separately busted for an alleged East Harlem robbery earlier this month where he was accused of flashing what appeared to be the handle of a gun in his waistband and trying to rob someone selling items on the sidewalk on E. 116th St, court papers show.
He pleaded not guilty in that case, was released on his own recognizance and is due back in Manhattan Supreme Court on Dec. 10.
Coulibaly claims that he never meant to rob anyone in the East Harlem episode and was again merely filming one of his “prank” videos, said Vomvolakis, who is not repping him in the alleged robbery case.
PBA President Patrick Hendry on Friday blasted the snowball-case plea deal as “weak.
“We’re not surprised that we’re getting weak justice in this case because DA Alvin Bragg and Mayor Mamdani made sure of that from the beginning,” Hendry told The Post.
“By downplaying this attack on police officers, the mayor and DA gave this individual a free pass to keep causing chaos on our streets — and that’s exactly what he has done,” Hendry said.
“This is yet another consequence of having a DA who is more focused on punishing cops for doing our job than protecting the people of Manhattan.”
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