Race Case Victim Held in Robbery

An alleged victim in the recent Howard Beach racial attack was charged with robbing a teen of his wallet and gold chain on a Brooklyn subway, it was revealed yesterday.

And after Richard Wood was arrested, he even called hate crime cops working on the race beating case in a bid to get out of the robbery rap, sources said.

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Wood was one of three black men attacked in Howard Beach on June 29 in what authorities called a hate crime.

The white attackers said they chased Wood and two pals because they believed the trio was trying to steal a gold chain from one of them. Wood and one of his buddies said they were in the Queens neighborhood to steal a car, cops have said.

One of the attackers admitted he smashed Wood’s buddy Glenn Moore with a baseball bat while a second stole the fallen man’s sneakers as a trophy.

Wood’s arrest, while unrelated to the Howard Beach case, could undercut prosecutors’ bias case, sources said yesterday.

“It bolsters the claims by the white guys that they attacked the black guys as retribution, not as a racial crime,” said a detective familiar with the case.

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