Queens DA in support of sentence reduction for man serving 50 years in prison
/
Robert Webster, who was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison as a teenager in the late 1980s, will appear in Queens Criminal Court for a re-sentencing hearing on Monday, July 11, 2022. Photo via GoFundMe
By Jacob Kaye
A Queens man over 30 years into a 50 year sentence for two arsons in Queens he says he never committed will come before a Queens judge Monday for a re-sentencing hearing.
Robert Webster, who was convicted on two counts of arson in 1988, will appear before Queens Supreme Court Justice Peter Vallone on Monday to get a decision on a motion to reduce his sentence to 30 years, down 20 years from the half-century sentence imposed on him as a teenager.
The decision rests with Vallone, as the Queens district attorney’s office has already filed a motion expressing their support of Webster’s efforts to reduce his sentence.
Should the motion be granted, the 51-year-old Webster will be given the opportunity to appear before the state’s parole board, two decades earlier than previously expected.
“Under the unique circumstances of this case, justice is best served by re-sentencing,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement to the Eagle. “Allowing Robert Webster to set aside the original sentence and appear before the parole board at this time preserves the integrity of the criminal justice system.”
Webster, who is being represented by high profile attorney Jennifer Bonjean, who previously represented both singer R. Kelly and comedian Bill Cosby, last appeared in Queens Criminal Court in May for a procedural hearing. During the appearance, Vallone ordered the Queens County Probation Department to produce a standard report on Webster’s viability for release.
Should Vallone grant the motion, Webster will likely appear before the state’s parole board at some point in the next six months. Following his meeting with the board, its members will have 30 days to decide whether or not he will be released.
Bonjean did not respond to the Eagle’s request for comment.
Though he maintains his innocence, Webster was convicted of two arsons that took place at a home belonging to a man named Arujune, on the corner of Inwood Street and 107th Avenue. The arsons were said to be retaliatory and followed a call Arjune made to the police to report two drug dealers, neither of whom were Webster, standing near his home.
While Webster and his attorneys have raised a number of questions about the NYPD’s investigation of the arsons and their conduct after arresting and prosecuting the then-teen, Katz did not suggest that Webster was innocent in her statement to the Eagle. She remained, however, in support of his sentence reduction.
“The defendant was 17 years old at the time he joined others in throwing firebombs through the window of a witness in 1987,” Katz said. “For those crimes, he was handed an aggregate sentence of 50 years to life – more than a conviction of second-degree murder can carry. He has now served over thirty-four years in prison and has not sustained an infraction in over a decade.”
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz’s office is in support of a motion filed by Robert Webster, a Queens man sentenced to 50 years to life in prison as a teenager in the late 1980s, in his efforts to be re-sentenced and granted a change to appear before the state’s parole board. AP file photo by Mary Altaffer
While in prison – he’s served the majority of his sentence in Green Haven Correctional Facility – Webster became the first person in his family to earn a college degree. He’s also held multiple jobs, including as a teacher, helping other incarcerated people earn their high school and college degrees.
On Nov. 9, 1987, two calls were made to the NYPD to report two alleged drug dealers standing on the corner of Inwood Street and 107th Avenue. Following the second call, believed to be made by Arjune, one of the two men on the corner was arrested.
Webster says he was in his mother’s Queens home sleeping around 4 a.m., on Nov. 10, 1987, when Arjune’s South Jamaica house was assaulted by two men throwing Molotov cocktails – the firebombs caused minimal damage. Arjune told police that both of the perpetrators were Black men.
The victim joined police on a search through the neighborhood and arrested 27-year-old Claude Johnson, who would go on to be sentenced to 25 years in prison – Johnson was released in 2020.
Two hours later, four men drove up to the house in a beige Chevrolet and tossed three Molotov cocktails at Arjune’s home. Arjune told police that he had not seen the perpetrators, according to records of the interaction.
The next day, two NYPD officers stopped Webster, who was walking near Inwood Street and Pinegrove Street with his cousin, and asked him to get in their car and help them identify the perpetrator of a rape. Though he had not witnessed a rape, Webster told the Eagle that he was “naive and scared,” and told the officers he would help.
However, the officers took Webster to Arjune’s house, where his nephew, Herrick Khan, was waiting. Khan identified Webster as one of the people who firebombed his house and he was arrested.
According to Webster, while at the precinct, police officers swapped his charcoal jacket with a black jacket for his mugshot. The black jacket they placed on him matched that of the description initially given by Arjune.
In February 1988, while Webster was in Rikers Island awaiting his trial, police officer Edward Byrne, who was stationed outside of Arjune’s house in case of further attacks, was shot to death in what was believed to be a retaliatory killing.
The death of the police officer is what led to Webster’s stiff sentence.
During Webster's trial, former Queens Supreme Court Justice Thomas A. Demakos said that the crimes “remind me of the drug kingpins in South America who, by their killing of their judges and their prosecutors, have injected so much fear in their community that they are practically immune from prosecution and here in our own community, we've had the killing of a witness to a drug transaction and we've even had the killing of a police officer who was guarding a witness...and we have the same thing here,” according to court documents.
Webster was sentenced to two consecutive 25-year-to-life terms, the maximum for the charges.
“I went from being a teenage kid, free on the street, to being a teenage kid locked up in an adult prison with 50-years-to-life,” Webster told the Eagle in December 2021. “I couldn't see 50 years ahead of me.”
Robert Webster’s sister, Vanessa Webster, who was 14-years-old at the time of her brother’s arrest, said that she was unsure what to anticipate for Monday’s hearing.
“We don't even know what's going to happen,” Vanessa Webster told the Eagle.”Even though the DA is not opposed to it, we still don't know if the judge is going to go along with it. We're hoping that he does.”
“Hopefully 7/11 will be the day,” she added.
(From left to right) Vanessa Webster, Robert Webster, Jawan Webster, Bobby Webster, and Dwayne Curry. Robert Webster is seeking a sentencing reduction after he was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison as a teenager in the late 1980s. Photo via Webster’s clemency application
In addition to his re-sentencing motion, Webster is seeking clemency from Governor Kathy Hochul.
Submitting his application with the governor last year, Webster has yet to get word on the status of his application.
Granting 10 clemencies in December, Hochul made a number of commitments to reforming the clemency process in New York, including granting clemencies on a rolling basis, rather than all at once around the holiday season.
Six months later, nearly none of the reforms have been implemented, the Eagle reported earlier this week.
Hochul has not granted a clemency in 2022.
