The cop accused of sodomizing a Brooklyn man with a police baton rejoiced Monday after he was found not guilty on all counts.

"I knew coming in I was innocent," Officer Richard Kern said after the verdict was read. "I feel good it's finally behind me. I'll finally get a good night's sleep."

Kern said he can't wait to "get back on the street, do what I love ... protecting the people of Brooklyn."

Two other officers, Alex Cruz and Andrew Morales, were also found not guilty of charges they covered up the assault.

"It was very hard sitting in there and listening to all the lies," said Morales. "I'm glad it's over."

Meanwhile, a stunned and disgusted Michael Mineo, whose police brutality claims led to the charges against the cops, swore and said, "I don't believe it."

"This has been a travesty of justice," his lawyer, Stephen Jackson, added.

The officers were acquitted despite testimony by Officer Kevin Maloney - who broke the Blue Wall of Silence and told the jury that he saw Kern violate Mineo.

Maloney said Mineo screamed out, "What are you doing? Sticking a radio up my a--?"
An apprentice body piercer, Mineo claimed he was brutalized after cops cuffed him for smoking pot on the Prospect Park subway platform in October 2008.

Kern, who was charged with aggravated sexual assault and faced 25 years in prison, testified that he pulled out his baton but never used it on the "squirming" Mineo.

"I was holding his legs down on the ground so he couldn't kick nobody," said Kern.

The verdict came after Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Alan Marrus dismissed a juror who told other jurors she'd heard that Kern had been convicted of police brutality before.

Kern had been accused of excessive force in a 2007 civil suit, but the city settled with two men out of court for $50,000.

The judge seated an alternate and told jurors that the officer had never been arrested for anything.

For the NYPD, the Mineo case drew disturbing comparisons to that of Abner Louima, who was sodomized with a broomstick by an officer in a 
Brooklyn police station in 1997.

Mineo has filed a $440 million lawsuit against the city.