Queens judge vacates 60 convictions
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Former Queens NYPD officer Oscar Sandino was arrested in 2010 for sexually assaulting several women who he arrested or threatened to arrest. Queens County Supreme Court Judge Michelle Johnson granted a motion to vacate several cases in which Sandino served as an essential witness on Monday, Nov. 8, 2021. AP file photo by Louis Lanzano
By Jacob Kaye
A Queens County Supreme Court judge granted a motion to vacate 60 convictions, all of which were based on the testimony from three disgraced former NYPD detectives.
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz, alongside a group of defense attorneys, submitted the motion to Justice Michelle Johnson on Monday. Johnson, who expedited the hearing, granted the motion less than 15 minutes into the hearing.
All of the people convicted were found guilty based on essential witness testimony of three since-fired NYPD detectives who have since been found to be wholly untrustworthy – Kevin Desormeau, Sasha Cordoba and Oscar Sandino.
The investigation into the convictions began earlier this year, after attorneys at Queens Defenders and The Legal Aid Society penned a letter to all five New York City district attorneys asking that they look into cases in which a list of 20 NYPD officers who had been convicted of crimes played an essential role.
Ten of the 20 officers named in the letter, were involved, at some point, in cases in Queens.
“Earlier this year, my office was informed of a list of NYPD officers who were convicted of crimes which related to serious misconduct in regard to their law enforcement duties,” Katz said in a statement. “Upon receipt of this information, I made a commitment to review the Queens cases in which the officers were the essential witnesses and take appropriate action.”
“We cannot stand behind a criminal conviction where the essential law enforcement witness has been convicted of crimes which irreparably impair their credibility,” she added. “Vacating and dismissing these cases is both constitutionally required and necessary to ensure public confidence in our justice system.”
The majority of the cases vacated Monday, were primarily based on “observed crimes, drugs transactions, searches and seizures of drugs, weapons and other contraband,” Katz said.
Over half of the vacated cases were prosecuted on the strength of testimony from Desormeau, who was convicted of perjury in 2018. Desormeau had a long history of troublesome behavior before his ultimate conviction and firing from the NYPD.
He was the subject of 43 Civilian Complaint Review Board allegations during his time with the NYPD, nine of which were substantiated.
Working out of the Queens South Gang Squad, Desormeau was accused of planting drugs and evidence, as well as taunting those who he arrested, Gothamist reported.
Desormeau, who served as the main witness in 34 of the 60 cases vacated this week, was convicted of perjury after he and his partner, Cordoba, repeatedly lied to prosecutors and the court about a 2014 gun bust.
Cordoba and Desormeau were both working in Manhattan in November 2014, when they searched a woman’s apartment and arrested a man for gun possession. The detectives later said that a witness had told them that a man in the apartment had pointed a gun at him and that the accused man answered the door with a gun when the police officers knocked.
The man was indicted before both Cordoba and Desormeau were charged and convicted for fabricating the whole story.
Twenty of the cases vacated were cases brought by Cordoba, who served two months in prison after she admitted that she had repeatedly lied about the gun search.
Sandino, who served in the NYPD for 13 years, working for several years out of the Queens North Narcotics Bureau, was arrested in March 2008 for forcing multiple women to have sex with him after he had arrested or threatened to arrest them.
In one case in February 2008, Sandino arrested a woman for drug distribution, according to the FBI. He then forced the woman to undress inside the apartment he arrested her in. Taking her back to the 110th Precinct, he followed her into the bathroom and forced her to preform oral sex in exchange for her release.
“Criminal convictions largely based on the work of corrupt former or active NYPD officers who engaged in misconduct while executing their duties flies in the face of the oaths officers take to protect and serve New Yorkers,” said Elizabeth Felber, the director of the Wrongful Conviction Unit at The Legal Aid Society. “This unconscionable and inexcusable behavior corrodes the public’s trust in law enforcement. It has also caused harm and hardship to real New Yorkers - several of whom were incarcerated based on the word of these corrupt officers.”
In her statement to the court Monday, Felber encouraged those who had been wrongfully convicted to continue to take legal action against the city. Felber said many had lost jobs over their convictions, had licenses suspended or have faced trouble securing housing. One of the women whose conviction was vacated, is dead.
“While it may not undo the harm caused to you, it will be a measure of justice to make up for the original injustices of your original arrest and conviction,” Felber said.
Felber was one of several attorneys who wrote to Katz, Manhattan DA Cy Vance, Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez, Staten Island DA Michael McMahon, Bronx DA Darcel Clark and Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan in May.
Their letter was prompted by the vacated convictions of 90 people who were found guilty based on the essential testimony of former NYPD officer Joseph Franco, who was charged with perjury.
The Queens DA’s office is continuing to look into cases worked on by the remaining seven officers mentioned in the attorneys’ letter.
The people who had their convictions vacated this week will not be re-prosecuted, according to Conviction Integrity Unit Director Bryce Benjet.
“The vacatur and dismissal of these cases does not constitute a finding of actual innocence and is based instead on a finding of constitutional error and the fact that we cannot re-prosecute these cases where the essential law-enforcement witness has forever lost professional credibility,” Benjet said. “That said, we will certainly investigate any claims of actual innocence made by any of these defendants.”
