Behind-the-scenes campaign helped spur Queens wrongful conviction reversals
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Kyle Bragg, president of the 32BJ SEIU labor union, organized influential Black leaders to urge Queens DA Melinda Katz to consent to vacate the convictions of George Bell, Rohan Bolt and Gary Johnson. Photo courtesy of 32BJ SEIU
By David Brand
After nearly a quarter-century, the effort to free three wrongfully convicted men from prison became a distinct reality when new Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz formed the office’s first Conviction Integrity Unit last year.
The CIU agreed to review the cases of George Bell, Rohan Bolt and Gary Johnson and soon turned up a mountain of evidence revealing serious misconduct by prosecutors. Top assistant district attorneys hid key police reports that implicated other likely suspects in the brutal murders of an off-duty police officer and check cashing store owner in 1996, the investigators found.
But before the wrongfully convicted men could walk out of prison on March 5, their cases encountered a web of internal and external politics — including a behind-the-scenes campaign by some of New York City’s most powerful Black leaders disturbed by the slow pace of justice.
As the effort to free Bell, Bolt and Johnson dragged on, their lawyers reached out to the influential Black leaders to persuade Katz to consent to their release, the Eagle has learned.
Kyle Bragg, the president of the powerful 32BJ SEIU labor union, took the lead, according to multiple people involved. Bragg drafted a letter urging Katz to act and recruited local lawmakers to sign on. Each of the elected officials represented predominantly Black communities in Southeast Queens that had carried Katz to victory in the 2019 Democratic primary for DA.
“Once I saw the description of what had both taken place and what had been revealed in the new investigation it was clear to me that if I could be helpful, I wanted to be,” Bragg said Tuesday.
He described his role as “very small” compared to defense attorneys, investigators and advocates, but people familiar with the process said the letter was important for spurring Katz to consent to vacate the convictions earlier this month.
Bragg declined to share the letter because he said he told local leaders that the document would remain confidential.
The Eagle, however, obtained an early February draft that was circulated to lawmakers to sign. The six-paragraph document repeats Katz’s stated commitment to overturning wrongful convictions and said the Bell-Bolt-Johnson cases “bear all the hallmarks of a miscarriage of justice.”
“We write to you with great urgency as leaders of our respective communities, primarily communities of color across Queens,” the draft letter read. “Our community trusts you to fulfill your pledge for criminal justice reform and to uphold the highest level of integrity of your Office.”
“We urge you to immediately file a motion to vacate the convictions of Bell, Bolt and Johnson and thereby ensure that these men finally, and rightfully, live free,” the letter continued. “We expect to receive a favorable response from you by Monday, February 8, 2021.”
Days later, Katz consented to the motion to vacate the convictions. A Queens judge reversed the convictions March 5.
Gary Johnson embraces his family after his wrongful conviction for murder was overturned March 5. Photo by Klaus Enrique
The letter was signed by several elected officials, including Reps. Gregory Meeks and Hakeem Jeffries and Borough President Donovan Richards, according to people familiar with the document. Meeks, Jeffries and Richards did not provide a response for this story.
Assemblymember Alicia Hyndman also urged Katz to consent to vacate the convictions after becoming aware of the letter.
“Kyle Bragg of 32BJ was very instrumental in making me aware of this case,” she said.
Internal and external politics
The pressure from influential Black leaders played a key role in cutting through the interoffice politics that slowed the decision to reverse the convictions, according to people familiar with the process.
Brad Leventhal, one of the prosecutors who tried the cases against Bell, Bolt and Johnson — and in Bell’s case, sought the death penalty — remains a high-ranking official in the Queens DA’s Office. He serves as Katz’s Homicide Bureau chief. Another, Charles Testagrossa, served as Majors Crimes Bureau chief and worked with key figures in the Queens DA’s administration for decades before taking a job with the Nassau County DA’s office in 2016. He resigned Tuesday, the Nassau County DA’s Office said.
Katz and CIU Director Bryce Benjet defended the prosecutors during the March 5 hearing to reverse the convictions, telling the court that they acted in “good faith” and “inadvertently” withheld the information.
Katz repeated that claim on CBS News Wednesday morning. “My conviction integrity unit that spent 11 months on this case truly believes that it was not a purposeful misconduct,” she said.
Queens Judge Joseph Zayas explicitly disagreed in his decision. He called the DA’s stance “puzzling” and said in his decision to reverse the convictions that Testagrossa, Leventhal and others “deliberately” withheld the information so as not to interfere with their cases, even as they sought the death penalty against Bell.
Bragg said he too found the DA’s position “a bit surprising” but said he remains confident in Katz who has so far agreed to reverse seven convictions following reviews by her CIU.
“I trust that the fact DA Katz has created this CIU that they will continue to do their job, led by Mr. Benjet, and that they will continue to identify cases that need to be addressed and make sure that justice is given to those who have been wrongfully convicted,” he said.
Despite his active role in pressuring Katz to consent to vacating the convictions, he declined to say whether he thought Katz should order a review of other cases handled by Testagrossa and Leventhal.
“I want to see change, I want to see justice, I want to see equity,” he said. “It’s easy to say we need to do this, we need to do that. I don’t know what the resources are, what the capabilities are to do that review.”
Most importantly, he said, he wants Katz to drop the indictments against Bell, Bolt and Johnson. She has 90 days to determine whether she will retry the men. She has not said whether she will pursue the case or if she will investigate other suspects implicated by witnesses and informants.
The documents concealed by prosecutors identified members of the so-called “Speedstick” gang for the murders at the check cashing place. The crew was accused of committing similar armed robberies, and Queens prosecutors had used one of the documents they concealed from Bell, Bolt and Johnson’s attorneys to try Speedstick members for separate crimes.
Demanding accountability
In the wake of the conviction reversals, several local lawmakers have spoken out to call for more accountability for the prosecutors involved.
Hyndman and other Southeast Queens elected officials said Tuesday that the violations uncovered in the CIU’s investigation should compel Katz to order a review of every case tried by Testagrossa and Leventhal.
Jennifer Naiburg, the chief executive assistant district attorney, told the New York Times Friday that the office did not plan to review Leventhal’s roughly 85 past cases.
The Queens DA’s Office has not responded to multiple requests for comment for this story and previous Eagle articles about the wrongful convictions. Leventhal and Testagrossa have not responded to requests for comment.
Other elected officials, including Councilmember I. Daneek Miller and Assemblymember Khaleel Anderson, have called on Katz to fire Leventhal, citing the severity of the violations in a case where the Queens DA’s Office sought the death penalty.
“Anyone even remotely related to this case must be removed, and an expeditious review of the prosecutors' prior convictions should be a top priority for the Queens DA's Office,” Miller told the Eagle.
Candidates for city office have taken up the cause as well.
Tiffany Cabán, a former public defender who narrowly lost to Katz in the 2019 Democratic primary for DA, likened the misconduct to Manhattan prosecutor Linda Fairstein’s role in convicting five teenagers for the rape of a jogger in Central Park. The charges and convictions in the Central Park Five case were based on coerced confessions that did not match the actual facts of the crime. All five men were proven innocent after years behind bars.
“They need to fire him, one,” Cabán said of Leventhal. “And two, it’s the same calls that were made with Linda Fairstein. You need to go back into every single case that that assistant has touched.”
Cabán, who briefly interned in the Queens DA’s Office during law school, is running for city council in Astoria. She said the suppression of evidence in the Bell-Bolt-Johnson cases were particularly grievous violations that illustrate a “win-at-all-costs” mentality.
“It’s naming another person who committed the murder. It’s not a ‘Whoops, failure to disclose,’” she said. “It changes the entire theory of the case, it changes entirely.”
Another candidate for city council with a unique lens into the justice system is also speaking out about the wrongful convictions. Former Councilmember Ruben Wills is running to reclaim his old seat in Council District 28 after his 2018 corruption conviction was overturned by an appellate court last year. He said he thought Leventhal should be fired after Zayas called the misconduct “deliberate.”
“At this point in time, he has received enough taxpayer income, he’s going to get a pension and he needs to be fired,” Wills said. “And I think his cases need to be reviewed, and that would be an action to show they can’t get away with it.”
Wills also praised Katz for fulfilling her pledge to review and overturn wrongful convictions. “Because of her doing that, it led to the release of the men,” he said. “That takes incredible integrity and real strength.”
Critics of the Queens DA’s Office under Katz’s predecessor, late DA Richard Brown, say top officials fostered a culture more concerned with winning cases than seeking justice and did not discipline assistants who committed misconduct. Katz herself took aim at the culture of the office ahead of the Democratic primary in 2019.
During a televised debate, she criticized an opponent, former top ADA and Queens judge Greg Lasak, for being a “cog in that system that we are all up here talking about reforming.”
Even Katz’s sharpest critics acknowledge that she has initiated key reforms, like the creation of the CIU.
Completely overhauling an office culture can take time, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Dr. Christina Greer, a political science professor at Fordham University.
“It often takes gradual change, even for the egregious acts. We want to come with the swift machete but in the long run that’s not a great strategy,” Greer said.
Greer said Katz will likely continue making changes as she faces continued community pressure to address past injustices.
“With all these offices, there’s the importance of consistent pressure, not just when people are running for office,” she said.
