Police said Sunday that Ramsey Orta, the 22-year-old who recorded brutal footage of NYPD putting Eric Garner in a chokehold, was arrested on weapons charges this weekend. He was picked up just blocks from where he recorded Garner's deadly arrest. Orta's wife claims police have been following him.

According to The New York Times, Orta was charged with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon after allegedly trying to pass a .25-caliber Norton semiautomatic handgun to a teen on the street. The teenager, 17-year-old Alba Lekaj, was also arrested.

Orta's family says the charges have been trumped up to "ruin his life." His wife, Chrissy Ortiz, told the Staten Island Advance,

They park across the street, they follow him. I'm speaking [about] the NYPD. It's obvious. Once they rule [Eric Garner's death] a homicide, now you all of a sudden find something on him? Come on, let's be realistic. Even the dumbest criminal would know not to be doing something like that outside. So the whole story doesn't fit at all.

She continued, "We're gonna have to move to the moon. Do you have a space in the moon? Do you have connections? We need to move to the moon so we can be safe."

In response to the arrest, Rev. Al Sharpton has urged District Attorney Daniel Donovan to let federal authorities prosecute the Eric Garner case. "Now the Staten Island District Attorney may be in a conflict where he is prosecuting someone who may be a witness in the [Garner] case," he said at a press conference on Sunday.

[Photo of Orta hugging Garner's mother at Garner's funeral via AP]