The indictment charged acting Police Chief George Hesse with viciously beating and stomping a New Yorker who had gotten a littering summons.

Three other cops were charged with covering up the 2005 assault by concocting lies that a clock fell on Samuel Gilberd's head and that his injuries were self-inflicted.

"It was a police department gone wild," said Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota.

The indictments follow a federal lawsuit filed last week by five former Ocean Beach cops who claim they were wrongfully fired because Hesse believed they were cooperating with investigators probing police misconduct.

That lawsuit claims Hesse hung out with a drug dealer and ran his department like a "fraternity house," where he had sexual liaisons and covered up cases of off-duty cops brawling in bars.

"Hesse and his cronies are a disgrace to the uniform and the badge," said Kevin Lamm, one of the suing cops.

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After getting a littering summons, Gilberd kicked the door on the way out, angering Hesse and setting off the "egregious" brutality, Spota said.

Officers Paul Carollo, 46, and Arnold Hardman, 51, allegedly dragged the victim to a back room of the stationhouse, where the stocky Hesse, 38, allegedly pummeled the 150-pound victim, Spota said. Officer William Emburey, 41, a former NYPD sergeant reporting for his first night on the job, allegedly guarded the door.

While Gilberd was on the floor, Hesse allegedly kicked him in the stomach so hard his backbone ruptured his bladder.

Gilberd's wife eventually found him unconscious on the stationhouse floor. It took 21/2 hours to get Gilberd to a mainland hospital by boat after cops waved off a medevac helicopter, claiming the victim was only drunk and unruly.