SE Queens lawmakers call on Katz to probe prosecutors’ past cases in wake of 'egregious' violations
/
Rohan Bolt embraces his family members after his wrongful conviction was overturned March 5. Photo by Enrique Klause
By David Brand
Three Southeast Queens lawmakers have called on District Attorney Melinda Katz to review every case handled by prosecutors whose serious misconduct led to wrongful convictions in the 1996 murder of a cop and check cashing store owner.
Assemblymembers Alicia Hyndman and Khaleel Anderson and Councilmember I. Daneek Miller each urged Katz to conduct a review of the prosecutors’ past cases after a Queens judge reversed the wrongful murder convictions based on what he termed the “egregious” and “deliberate” suppression of crucial evidence pointing to other likely suspects.
Former Major Crimes Bureau Chief Charles Testagrossa and current Homicide Bureau Chief Brad Leventhal hid police reports and Testagrossa’s own handwritten notes identifying the other suspects, Judge Joseph Zayas wrote in his decision reversing the convictions Friday.
Miller said those violations should trigger a probe of other cases tried by Leventhal, Testagrossa and additional prosecutors involved.
“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 said.
Councilmember I. Daneek Miller called on Queens DA Melinda Katz to fire prosecutors whose violations led to the wrongful conviction of three Queens men. William Alatriste/City Council photography
He said the case illustrated the racist and unjust treatment that Black and brown Queens men have experienced for generations. Bell, Bolt and Johnson are each Black and had little in common with other suspects implicated in the killing of NYPD Officer Charles Davis and business owner Ira Epstein aside from the color of their skin, their attorneys maintain.
"Unfortunately, this is just the tip of the iceberg,” Miller said. “Black and Brown men in Queens have been victims of a drastically punitive system of over-policing that has resulted in over-sentencing and incarceration for decades, and there are many more cases in the queue with questionable convictions that must be reviewed.”
The Office’s Chief Executive Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Naiburg told The New York Times Friday that Leventhal has handled “roughly 85 cases.” His recent high-profile cases include the prosecution of Chanel Lewis, a man convicted at retrial of killing Howard Beach resident Karina Vetrano in 2016.
Katz signed onto a joint motion filed by attorneys for Bell, Bolt and Johnson after a year-long review by her Conviction Integrity Unit turned up police reports, notes and witness testimony hidden by trial prosecutors. The reversals bring the number of wrongful convictions overturned with the backing of the CIU to seven.
Critics of the Queens DA’s Office under Katz’s predecessor, late DA Richard Brown, say top officials were more concerned with winning cases than seeking justice and at time cut corners or suppressed evidence while prosecuting defendants, the vast majority of whom are Black and Latino men. In late 2019 and early 2020, top prosecutors under Brown, as well as some still serving, sat for depositions as part of a series of lawsuits filed by three other men who were wrongfully convicted in Queens.
One complaint accused the DA’s Office of upholding an “office policy that was indifferent to misconduct and rewarded prosecutors for ‘winning’ cases.” The lawsuits cited nearly 120 cases where Queens prosecutors were criticized for misconduct by appellate judges.
Katz and CIU Director Bryce Benjet said in court Friday, however, that their probe into the Bell-Bolt-Johnson cases found that prosecutors acted in “good faith” and that the failure to turn over the crucial evidence was “inadvertent.” Zayas called that notion “puzzling” and said the DA’s Office offered no information to back up their assertion.
Queens lawmakers have also criticized the view that prosecutors acted in good faith when they concealed the evidence despite specific requests from defense attorneys. The Queens DA’s Office sought the death penalty against Bell at the time.
In a statement Tuesday, a spokesperson for Anderson, a first-term lawmaker representing Southeast Queens and Far Rockaway, said Leventhal should be fired for his role in the wrongful convictions. In addition to hiding the police reports and notes, Leventhal also concealed deals with key witnesses charged with crimes of their own, attorneys for the wrongfully convicted men found.
“The trial prosecutor should be terminated from his job because the men wrongfully convicted lost nearly a quarter century of their lives,” said Anderson’s spokesperson Christina Cover. “Though this does not heal the years of pain felt by the men and their families, it is only just for the prosecutor who handled the wrongful conviction to be held accountable.”
Hyndman signed a letter last month urging Katz to consent to reversing the convictions and said the Queens DA deserves credit for fulfilling her campaign pledge to create a review unit.
“One of the reasons why I voted for Katz is because she vowed to right a lot of wrongs, and this one case shows me there’s probably more,” Hyndman said. “Every case that the detectives and the prosecutor were involved in should be reviewed.”
Katz has not yet said whether she will retry Bell, Bolt and Johnson or pursue an investigation into other suspects implicated by witnesses and informants in accounts concealed from attorneys for the three men.
The three men were arrested following the murder of Davis and Epstein during a botched robbery of an East Elmhurst check cashing on Dec. 21, 1996. No physical evidence tied Bell, Bolt and Johnson to the crime, but Bell and Johnson gave confessions they later said were coerced by detectives. Bolt maintained his innocence.
Soon after the murders, witnesses and informants implicated members of a crew known as the “Speedstick” gang for the crime, which mirrored other armed robberies the same group had committed. Queens prosecutors never turned over police reports or notes containing the information about the alternate suspects and denied in court any possible connection between Speedstick and the check cashing store murders.
Queens Judge Arthur Cooperman sentenced Bell, Bolt and Johnson to virtual life sentences following their guilty verdicts, though a jury spared Bell the death penalty.
The three men deserve justice after nearly 25 years in jail and prison, Hyndman said.
“Those years are gone,” she said. “Those years with their family members are gone. You can’t get that back.”
A fourth Southeast Queens lawmaker, State Sen. Leroy Comrie, said he trusted Katz to sift through “40 years of dirt and muck” when it comes to misconduct and unfair treatment of Black defendants.
“There’s a lot that she has to do,” Comrie said. “I think we need to give her the opportunity to do everything.”
Comrie said he knew Davis and his wife from church and called it “shameful” that the likely real killers have yet to be held accountable for the murders.
The Queens DA’s Office has not responded to multiple requests for comment for this story and others related to the wrongful convictions. Testagrossa and Leventhal have not responded to requests for comment.
Testagrossa told CNN that he has “disclosed all exculpatory material of which I was aware and I did so in this case as well.”
After those comments were published, Zayas amended his ruling to accuse Testagrossa of lying.
