Challenge to 2001 attempted murder conviction hinges on prosecutorial misconduct claim in Queens
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A hearing over a potential discovery violation in an 18-year-old attempted murder conviction began Tuesday in Queens County Criminal Court. Eagle photo by David Brand.
By David Brand
A Queens man convicted in 2001 for his role in a violent armored truck heist says a sworn statement from a police informant who identified another suspect was not disclosed by prosecutors until 21 years after the crime occurred, a potential discovery violation that could overturn the conviction.
The Queens District Attorney’s Office, which is contending with various unrelated prosecutorial misconduct lawsuits, disputes the allegation that it withheld the document, and a Queens judge began hearing testimony about the alleged discovery violation Tuesday.
Robert Majors, 54, was convicted of attempted murder, weapons possession and armed robbery in 2001 after a Queens judge determined that he was one of three men who, in May 1997, robbed an armored truck in Flushing and shot 48 times at an off-duty NYPD officer and a retired cop guarding tens of thousands of dollars inside. The two guards were left bloody and seriously injured after the shootout, but both survived.
The next day, officers arrested Majors with a duffel bag full of guns, including assault rifles used to shoot the two guards. Majors led officers in a car chase and then ditched the car with his young daughter inside to flee on foot before he was apprehended. He and his attorneys do not dispute that series of events (though they contend Majors picked up the bag as a favor for his brother-in-law, one of the others convicted for the brutal truck heist).
The attorneys say there was not enough evidence to link Majors to the shootout the day before, however. Majors even had a compelling alibi, they said — a chiropractor testified to say Majors was at her office receiving treatment around the time of the robbery.
And then there is a sworn, three-page affidavit handwritten by a police informant identifying another suspect named “Rasheed” as one of the perpetrators. The defense attorney representing Majors at his trial says he never received that affidavit, even though a statement from the same informant was used to arrest a third suspect later convicted for the 1997 robbery.
“We could have done so much more, but this document was withheld,” said Majors’ first attorney William Martin during direct examination at Tuesday’s hearing. “If I would have had this document, it would have given me a number of different avenues to pursue a defense of Mr. Majors.”
Martin and four other attorneys who represented Majors and his two co-defendants signed sworn affidavits stating that they never saw the statement from the police informant.
“I had no reason to believe it existed,” Martin said.
Majors, dressed in a white button-down shirt with long, graying braids, appeared Tuesday before Justice John Latella, the same judge who sentenced him 18 years ago. He opted for a bench trial in 2001 after his initial jury trial conviction was reversed for juror misconduct and he is serving a virtual life sentence in Greenhaven Correctional Facility.
At trial, Martin contended that Majors picked up the bag for his brother-in-law Aaron Boone — one of the other suspects convicted in the robbery — and did not know its contents.
He acknowledged that Majors, who had two previous convictions, was not a sympathetic figure, especially after he was arrested “with a bag full of guns” after leaving his young daughter alone in the car to flee police, but he separated those events from the shootout the day before.
Martin is a former Bronx Supreme Court justice who was arrested for conspiracy to commit tax evasion and multiple drug charges in 1989. He ultimately pleaded guilty to tax evasion and cocaine possession in 1990 and he received three years probation. He was also suspended from practicing law for six years.
Queens Executive Assistant District Attorney Robert Masters discussed Martin’s history during a contentious cross examination and reminded Martin that he was found to have perjured himself on at least three occasions in the past.
Tensions flared during a dispute over pretrial events more than 20 years ago.
“You defended him,” Masters said.
“Y’all prosecuted him — and kept these documents out of evidence,” Martin responded.
Masters said that the DA’s Office turned over the affidavit. At the very least, he said, defense attorneys were aware of its contents because the same informant was mentioned during pretrial hearings.
Four other attorneys who represented Majors or his co-defendants submitted affidavits of their own stating that they never received the written statement.
After the robbery and shootout, NYPD officers used fingerprint evidence to identify Boone as one of the suspects. Officers arrested Boone outside his Jamaica home with $31,000 in cash. They then arrested Majors with the bag full of guns. Two eyewitnesses later identified Majors, Masters said. There were significant inconsistencies with their identifications, however.
The rifles, Masters said, were used “in the armored car heist and the blood bath as a result of that.”
“He was ultimately apprehended with weapons that were ballistically linked to the carnage of the day before,” Masters added.
Majors could not have committed the robbery, his attorneys say, because he was at the chiropractor. During the jury trial, chiropractor corroborated that alibi. She testified that she treated him for back pain sometime shortly before 10 a.m. and that he left her office between 10:20 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Surveillance video from the crime scene showed the armed robbers shooting at the truck at 10:21 a.m.
A jury did not find the alibi credible and convicted him. The chiropractor did not testify at the bench trial.
The informant’s statement contradicting the DA’s case would have changed everything, said his current attorney Thomas Hoffman.
“They never turned it over until last year. For 21 years, [Majors] is asking for it, he knows there’s an affidavit, he knows there’s a statement,” Majors’ attorney Thomas Hoffman told the Eagle. “Finally they say, ‘Aha, we turned it over.”
“That’s crazy because any defense lawyer who had an affidavit naming someone other than their client would use it,” he continued. “That’s how innocent people go to jail.”
Three of Majors’ family members watched from the gallery during the hearing.
“I hope he comes home because he was wrongfully convicted,” said Majors’ niece Keiana Majors outside the courtroom Tuesday. “I don’t know what God had planned and why he’s doing it like this, but I keep telling [Majors] now is your time.”
