Faulty probe and prosecution led to 2001 Queens murder conviction, lawyers say
/
Neron Dozier was convicted of second-degree murder in 2001. His attorneys say he was wrongfully convicted and have submitted his case to the Queens DA’s Conviction Integrity Unit. Photo courtesy of Jarrett Adams
By David Brand
A Long Island City man’s 19-year-old murder conviction is now under review by the Queens District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit after a team of defense lawyers determined that a shoddy investigation, “impossible” sequence of events and four instances of evidence-suppression by Queens prosecutors led to their client’s imprisonment.
Neron Dozier was convicted of second-degree murder in May 2001 after prosecutors said he shot and killed a man named Derrick Gilmore inside Gilmore’s parked Ford Explorer near the intersection of 38th Street and 21st Avenue one year earlier.
Dozier’s lawyer Jarrett Adams says prosecutors working the case committed four serious evidence-sharing violations, known as Brady violations, by not disclosing two alternate suspects — the boyfriend and nephew of an NYPD officer who owned the vehicle used in the murder — or a police lineup identification of one of those other men to Dozier’s defense attorney. Prosecutors also failed to inform Dozier and his defense lawyer that they had offered a plea deal to the star witness testifying against him, Adams said.
But what caught the attention of Adams and fellow wrongful conviction attorney Jeffrey Deskovic was a key description of the suspect.
Eyewitnesses said the suspect ran away after firing his gun, an action that would have been “impossible” for Dozier, who was shot in the leg and seriously wounded three days earlier, said Deskovic who investigated the wrongful conviction claim. He referred the case to Adams, who conducted his own review.
“What made us want to do the research was right at the front, the suspect was described as running which is something [Dozier] wouldn’t have been able to do because he was shot,” Deskovic said.
Yet, that same gunshot wound provided the motive for the attack on Gilmore, police and prosecutors said. It was Gilmore who shot Dozier during a fight three days earlier, compelling Dozier to retaliate, they said.
In an application to Queens CIU Director Bryce Benjet, Adams said there was no way his client could have run from the scene or adhered to the sequence of events presented by prosecutors because of his injury.
Adams also highlighted a haphazard investigation by police and four Brady violations that did not emerge until years after Dozier’s conviction. Trial prosecutor Peter Walcott was later charged with sexual abuse, further challenging his integrity, Adams said.
Witnesses at the May 2000 murder scene said a man stepped out of a green GMC SUV and shot into Gilmore’s Explorer on the morning of May 13, 2000. A passenger, Luis Figueroa, was also shot inside the Explorer but survived.
The GMC was quickly found parked outside the Queensbridge Houses. The vehicle’s owner, Angela Willis, approached the cops and said she had lost her keys. Though Willis was a police officer, she did not identify herself as a cop until officers searching her home found her badge and empty holster. Her service weapon, a 9mm handgun, was found in her locker in Manhattan’s 23rd Precinct. The murder weapon was also a 9mm handgun, but police said the bullets did not match Willis’ gun.
After the apartment search, Willis was taken to the 114th Precinct where she changed her story to say that her boyfriend had taken the keys when she tried to break up with him a month earlier, according to a police report.
Willis was suspended, according to news reports, and police arrested her boyfriend Angel Moorman and questioned him that evening.
Figueroa, the wounded passenger in the Explorer, identified Moorman in a photo lineup later that night — an identification that was never disclosed until 2008, Adams wrote in his letter to Benjet.
Five hours after questioning Moorman, however, police released him and voided his arrest without explanation. They then set their sights on Dozier, who Moorman said he had driven with around the time of the murder.
Figueroa later testified that he saw Dozier at the scene. Prosecutors did not disclose to Dozier’s attorney that they had offered Figueroa a plea deal on unrelated charges of selling drugs in a school zone and assaulting a police officer in exchange for his testimony, court records and plea deal documents compiled by Adams reveal.
Adams cited several issues in witness testimony and questioned why other witnesses who provided divergent accounts were not called to the stand. He also questioned the information that led officers and prosecutors away from Moorman and Willis’ nephew, who also had access to Willis car keys and gun.
“Our firm has identified four separate Brady violations that severely thwarted the defense’s case and very likely impacted the integrity of the verdict,” Adams wrote in his application to Benjet. “Two alternate stronger suspects were withheld from the defense, the theory of two suspects was never pursued, and the state’s star witness, Luis Figueroa, received a plea deal which appears to have been in exchange for his testimony at Mr. Dozier’s trial.”
Benjet and the Queens DA’s Office did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
After more than nine months, the CIU founded by Queens DA Melinda Katz has overturned one wrongful conviction, concluding an investigation that had begun under the previous administration.
Justice reform advocates say the dearth of reversals is not for lack of cases.
Before Katz took over Jan. 1, Queens prosecutors, including top officials who remain in the DA’s Office, had been accused of fostering an “office policy that was indifferent to misconduct and rewarded prosecutors for ‘winning’ cases,” according to a lawsuit that prompted depositions of top executives.
Wrongful conviction attorneys have praised the creation of the CIU and filed at least 46 submissions for review as of May 6.
Adams and Deskovic, who were both wrongfully convicted and exonerated, say they are concerned the Queens CIU has not received the staffing and resources necessary to adequately investigate the volume of potential wrongful convictions in Queens.
“To have a beautiful car with no gas is just a beautiful car,” Deskovic said, adding that limited staffing in the CIU is further delaying justice for wrongfully convicted individuals.
“I’m sensitive to delays because I know what it is to be wrongfully imprisoned,” he said.
