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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">How Prosecutors Use Conspiracy
and Questionable Testimony in "Gang" Cases</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Josmar
Trujillo - October 22, 2021<br>
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<p>In the United States, it is estimated that about two
people are wrongfully convicted every day. In 2014,
the Innocence Project <span><a
href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/9kvj3d/why-are-there-up-to-120000-innocent-people-in-us-prisons"
moz-do-not-send="true">estimated</a></span> that
around 120,000 people incarcerated in state prisons
were wrongfully convicted. More than half of wrongful
convictions, one <span><a
href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2020/09/16/more-than-half-all-wrongful-criminal-convictions-caused-by-government-misconduct-study-finds/"
moz-do-not-send="true">study</a></span> found,
were the result of official misconduct by police
officers, prosecutors — or both.</p>
<p>New York City, which was at the epicenter of perhaps
the most notorious wrongful conviction saga, the case
of the Central Park Five (now known as the “Exonerated
5”), has seen dozens of people freed from prison.
Often, the actions of police officers were at the
heart of these wrongful convictions. But what happens
when someone is accused of being in a gang — and how
might that make a wrongful conviction easier to fly
under the radar?</p>
<h2>Donnell Murray and the Consequences of Police
Harassment</h2>
<p>After officers walked Donnell Murray into federal
court, he waved to his mother, sat next to his
attorney and combed through the day’s notes. Getting
to trial was a journey in itself. After more than two
years in custody, Murray wanted to put the federal
government’s case against him to the test.</p>
<p>Murray was raised in the Bronx. Like other young
Black men, the entrepreneur worked with friends that
he’d grown up with to make music and the street
fashion that went along with it. Those friendships,
the federal government would eventually argue, were
part of a violent criminal conspiracy.</p>
<p>By 2017, Murray was living in Delaware. His mother
had moved them out of the Bronx partly due to constant
police harassment. The New York City Police Department
(NYPD), they learned, was looking for him. In order to
avoid more trouble, he turned himself in, unaware of
the wild case the feds had built against him.</p>
<p>He hasn’t been home since, charged with a shooting
and narcotics distribution in a federal gang
conspiracy case.</p>
<p>Murray’s road to federal court might have begun in
the NYPD’s 47th Precinct in the Bronx. For years,
according to his mother, his fiancée and his legal
team, the precinct’s officers harassed Murray. A
pattern of targeted stops seemed to stem from a
late-night altercation years earlier with a
high-ranking 47th Precinct cop.</p>
<p>Murray’s former lawyer, Frank Iannucci, helped him
fight some of the harassment. Iannucci, who died in
2015, was a former assistant district attorney from
the Bronx District Attorney’s Office. By his own
admission, he was a pro-police, pro-law enforcement
guy. Iannucci became a private criminal defense
attorney and represented Murray.</p>
<p>In 2010, Iannucci went to NYPD Internal Affairs to
lodge a complaint against the 47th Precinct on behalf
of his client. According to transcripts of Iannucci’s
meeting with Internal Affairs Bureau investigators,
early one Sunday morning in 2007, Murray and some
friends were eating at a popular after-hours Bronx
diner. As they began to leave, they encountered a 47th
Precinct sergeant, Patrick McGill, who was there for
an unrelated complaint. An argument between McGill and
Donnell’s group ensued.</p>
<p>Next, according to Iannucci, McGill slammed Murray on
a table and cops swarmed in to arrest him. Sergeant
McGill claimed Murray had assaulted him. But according
to Iannucci, security video showed the sergeant put
his hands on Murray first, leading to a skirmish.</p>
<p>The assault case ended in an acquittal, but Murray’s
problems with the 47th Precinct were just beginning. A
string of questionable arrests and car stops followed.
One arrest in 2008, Iannucci described to
investigators, was for an assault where Murray had
actually come to the aid of someone who had just been
jumped by cops. According to Murray, the officers who
arrived at the scene screamed, “That’s him, that’s
him!” as they approached.</p>
<p>In 2009, plainclothes police officers stopped Murray
in his car outside of a friend’s barbecue. They
checked his license and let him go. The next day,
those same cops drove into his friend’s private
driveway to confront Murray and insist he come down to
the precinct for a more thorough check of his license,
according to Iannucci. They also insisted he bring his
car.</p>
<p>At the 47th Precinct, cops claimed he had an invalid
license and were going to release him but insisted in
searching the car. They claimed to find a gun in his
car. Murray was charged with gun possession, but,
after many months, Iannucci had those charges dropped.
Murray’s family believes the arresting officers,
including Officer Abraham Villavizar, planted the gun.</p>
<p>Murray’s fiancée, Destinee Ferguson, was with him
during many of these encounters. She remembers cops in
marked and unmarked cars would nod their heads when
they saw him. During one stop, she says, cops
threatened Murray by saying, “Oh, Mr. Murray, if you
would’ve run, we would’ve shot you.”</p>
<img
src="https://truthout.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021_1022-destinee-ferguson-scaled.jpg"
alt="Donnell Murray's fiancé, Destinee Ferguson,
speaking at a protest outside the U.S. Attorney's
Southern District Offices, October 2020."
style="margin-right: 25px;" moz-do-not-send="true"
width="452" height="339">Donnell Murray’s fiancé,
Destinee Ferguson, speaking at a protest outside the
U.S. Attorney’s Southern District offices in October
2020.<span>Josmar Trujillo</span>
<p>In 2012, cops pulled over and arrested Murray in his
mom’s car at gunpoint with his infant son in the back.
When his mother, Darlene Murray, went to the precinct
to get her car, she saw one plainclothes officer
rummaging through her glove compartment, which she
filmed in a widely seen <span><a
href="https://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshh2jeXAgz3JT6esn57"
moz-do-not-send="true">video</a></span>. At that
time, Donnell Murray bought and resold cars and had
cash in the glove compartment. That money disappeared,
according to Murray’s mom.</p>
<p>A few months later, Ferguson says, Murray was waiting
for her in his car outside her home when cops pulled
up and claimed they had a warrant for him. The
officers handcuffed Murray and insisted on taking the
car with them. “Donnell is not someone who’s gonna let
them search his car. He knows his rights. They hate
that. That adds fuel to the fire,” Ferguson told <em>Truthout</em>.</p>
<p>The couple insisted to police that Ferguson take the
car and Murray’s property. Cops refused. At that
point, Ferguson started to record them with her phone.
“They got very upset,” she recalls. Cops took Murray.
One of the officers climbed into Murray’s car and sped
off.</p>
<p>The incidents happened during the height of
stop-and-frisk policing under former Mayor Michael
Bloomberg, who for years <span><a
href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/mike-bloomberg-cant-hide-how-he-helped-terrorize-black-people-with-stop-and-frisk-policing"
moz-do-not-send="true">rationalized</a></span>
mass stops in the city’s Black neighborhoods. The
repeated stops, Ferguson says, were frightening. “I
was pregnant. It made me really scared for [Murray’s]
life. I felt like he was gonna end up like <span><a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/nov/27/usa.julianborger"
moz-do-not-send="true">Sean Bell</a></span> or
something.”</p>
<p>“I feel like Donnell was set up by the NYPD, the 47th
Precinct,” his mother Darlene told <em>Truthout</em>.
“After that incident at the diner, they had it in for
him.” She also believes that because her son had sued
for wrongful arrest on multiple occasions and filed
numerous complaints, this put a target on his back.
She says his inclusion in the federal gang conspiracy
case was the culmination of a campaign of
intimidation.</p>
<p>It is not clear if the Internal Affairs
investigations into Murray’s allegations went
anywhere. Investigators interviewed both Officer
Villavizar and Sergeant McGill, both represented by
their union lawyers, for 16 and seven minutes,
respectively. The police department did not respond to
requests for comment for this story.</p>
<img
src="https://truthout.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021_1022-murray-protest-scaled.jpg"
alt="Donnell Murray's family and supporters at a
protest outside the NYPD's 47th Precinct, May 2020."
style="margin-right: 25px;" moz-do-not-send="true"
width="452" height="312">Donnell Murray’s family and
supporters at a protest outside the NYPD’s 47th Precinct
in May 2020.<span>Josmar Trujillo</span>
<h2>Cops Repeatedly Accused of Misconduct</h2>
<p>Officer Villavizar from the 47th Precinct was what
you could describe as an active cop. Numerous lawsuits
that alleged misconduct by Villavizar paint a picture
of an officer who doled out aggressive arrests where
charges were often dropped. Lawsuits against
Villavizar and others went on over the course of a
decade.</p>
<p>In 2008, Villavizar and his partner were alleged to
have violently arrested a man in the Bronx, according
to <span><a
href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5379000-Mann-et-al-v-The-City-of-New-York-et-al"
moz-do-not-send="true">court documents</a></span>.
The District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute
that man, who then sued for wrongful arrest and
settled with the city. Later that year, Villavizar and
an unnamed partner forcibly arrested a man and woman
in the Bronx, subjecting one to a strip and cavity
search, according to a <span><a
href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5379002-Moore-et-al-v-The-City-of-New-York-et-al"
moz-do-not-send="true">court complaint</a></span>.
Charges were dismissed. A lawsuit and a settlement
followed.</p>
<p>In 2012, Villavizar was part of a group of
plainclothes cops that allegedly approached people
moving furniture, accusing someone of smelling like
marijuana. After consenting to a search which turned
up nothing, the <span><a
href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4923063-McPherson-v-The-City-of-New-York-et-al"
moz-do-not-send="true">lawsuit complaint</a></span>
said, a man was violently arrested anyway and thrown
from the hood of a police car onto the concrete. That
case was dropped.</p>
<p>Later that year, Villavizar and another officer
arrested someone at gunpoint who told investigators
that cops demanded he show them his hands as he walked
to a family member’s house. After showing them his
empty hands, <span><a
href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5379007-Royer-v-The-City-of-New-York-et-al"
moz-do-not-send="true">court documents</a></span>
say, the cops arrested him for marijuana possession
anyway. Charges against that person were dismissed.</p>
<p>In 2013, Villavizar and an unnamed cop were named in
a troubling lawsuit. Dressed in SWAT gear, the duo
forcibly entered an apartment in the Bronx without a
warrant. They arrested a woman and an unnamed
“infant-plaintiff” (most likely a minor), placing both
in handcuffs, according to a <span><a
href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5378997-Cheatham-et-al-v-City-of-New-York-et-al"
moz-do-not-send="true">lawsuit</a></span>. The
woman was charged with marijuana possession. Those
charges were dropped and the woman’s lawsuit against
the city was settled for an undisclosed amount.</p>
<p>The <span><a
href="https://www.capstat.nyc/officer/p105273/"
moz-do-not-send="true">CAPstat</a></span> police
misconduct database shows at least eight lawsuits
filed against Villavizar, amounting to at least
$240,000 in settlements. Half of Villavizar’s known
lawsuits were either settled for undisclosed amounts
or the outcome was unknown, which suggests the total
amount settlements could be much higher.</p>
<p>And yet it was Villavizar whose testimony in the
conspiracy case would be used to connect Murray — who
never had a gun conviction in his life — to a gun.</p>
<p>In fact, one of the <span><a
href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5379005-Murray-v-The-City-of-New-York-et-al"
moz-do-not-send="true">lawsuits</a></span> against
Villavizar was filed by Murray after the 2010
gun-possession arrest in the precinct. Not only was
Villavizar’s gun charge dismissed, the city settled
Murray’s lawsuit for an undisclosed amount. Still,
Villavizar would be called upon by prosecutors to
testify about that arrest to a federal jury as
prosecutors painted Murray as a gang banger with a gun
charge.</p>
<p>When the judge in the trial ordered prosecutors to
provide information about past lawsuits of police
witnesses, federal prosecutors <span><a
href="https://www.docketbird.com/court-documents/USA-v-Johnson/LETTER-MOTION-addressed-to-Judge-Paul-G-Gardephe-from-USA-dated-February-17-2019-re-Court-s-Order-dated-February-16-2019-to-Provide-Additional-Information-Regarding-Certain-Civil-Lawsuits-Document-filed-by-USA-as-to-Latique-Johnson-Brandon-Green-Donn/nysd-1:2016-cr-00281-456390-00520"
moz-do-not-send="true">wrote</a></span> that doing
so “would be unfairly prejudicial and would waste time
and cause juror confusion.” They downplayed
Villavizar’s past, writing that, “from conversations
with Officer Villavizar and a review of publicly
available documents, the Government is aware of one
unrelated lawsuit, which was dismissed.”</p>
<p>The judge agreed with prosecutors. The jury didn’t
hear about Villavizar’s pattern of questionable
arrests or the lawsuits filed against him.</p>
<p>In an emailed response to <em>Truthout</em>, a
spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office wrote:
“Allegations in civil lawsuits are just that —
allegations. They are often irrelevant to criminal
cases. In Donnell Murray’s case, we agreed with
defense counsel and the judge that one lawsuit related
to … Villavizar was relevant to the case and defense
counsel was permitted to cross examine him about it.
We also informed the Court of multiple unrelated
lawsuits, which defense counsel first identified, and
the judge found were not useful for cross
examination.”</p>
<img
src="https://truthout.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021_1022-gang-database.jpg"
alt="Donnell Murray’s mother, Darlene Murray, speaks
out for her son at a rally in New York City."
style="margin-right: 25px;" moz-do-not-send="true"
width="452" height="323">Donnell Murray’s mother,
Darlene Murray, speaks out for her son at a rally in New
York City.<span>The Legal Aid Society</span>
<h2>Courts Permit Testimony From Cops Lacking
Credibility</h2>
<p>Testimony by cops with shady histories is a
long-running problem in New York City. Police
credibility has been <span><a
href="http://www.villagevoice.com/news/the-incredibles-judges-said-these-cops-cant-be-trusted-so-why-does-the-da-rely-on-them-9292168"
moz-do-not-send="true">an open issue in Brooklyn</a></span>,
where the district attorney continued prosecuting
arrests by officers accused of perjury and evidence
tampering. Manhattan prosecutors have been forced to
publicize <span><a
href="https://gothamist.com/news/manhattan-da-police-cops-list"
moz-do-not-send="true">lists</a></span> of “bad
cops” whose testimony is suspect. A <em>WNYC/Gothamist</em>
<span><a
href="https://gothamist.com/news/when-prosecutors-bury-nypd-officers-lies"
moz-do-not-send="true">investigation</a></span>
into the Bronx district attorney’s use of “bad cops”
included a gun case where an officer’s testimony was
contradicted by video but was prosecuted anyway.</p>
<p>The problems continue at the federal level as well.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica K. Feinstein, who in
Murray’s trial claimed the government knew of only one
lawsuit against Villavizar, had previously argued
against officer misconduct being entered into evidence
for other gang cases.</p>
<p><span><a
href="https://theappeal.org/nypd-detective-with-a-shady-past-helped-lock-up-a-pot-dealer-for-federal-conspiracy/"
moz-do-not-send="true">As reported</a></span> in <em>The
Appeal</em>, Feinstein argued that the credibility
of NYPD Detective Jeremiah Williams, whose prior gun
arrest of Carletto Allen in 2015 was key in Allen’s
federal gang trial, was not sullied by the fact that
Williams had been sued numerous times. Allen was
indicted in the 2016 <span><a
href="https://bronx120.report/"
moz-do-not-send="true">Bronx 120 gang sweep</a></span>,
the largest gang takedown in city history. Allegations
against Williams ranged from needless anal searches to
smashing someone’s head against a police car.</p>
<p>While Allen’s lawyers suspected foul play,
specifically that Williams may have planted a gun on
their client, he was nonetheless convicted in large
part due to the testimony of the detective, the only
person who could tie him to a gun — like Villavizar in
Murray’s case. And, like Villavizar, Williams was the
subject of at least eight lawsuits (<span><a
href="https://www.capstat.nyc/officer/p108508/"
moz-do-not-send="true">perhaps more</a></span>),
resulting in a total of a quarter-million dollars in
settlements, according to <em>The Appeal</em>.</p>
<p>But because all of those lawsuits were settled,
Feinstein could (and did) argue that there was no
admission of guilt; hence, Williams’s testimony was
credible.</p>
<p>Feinstein’s penchant for relying on testimonies of
cops with murky histories even included a case where
one may have been a flat-out racist. Her <span><a
href="https://www.leagle.com/decision/infco20210104052"
moz-do-not-send="true">prosecution</a></span> of
Donque Tyrell, also a defendant in the Bronx 120,
relied partly on testimony from police officer David
Sammarco. Sammarco has had at least <span><a
href="https://projects.propublica.org/nypd-ccrb/officer/5299-david-sammarco"
moz-do-not-send="true">35 allegations</a></span>
of misconduct, has been named in at least <span><a
href="https://www.capstat.nyc/officer/p90460/"
moz-do-not-send="true">six federal lawsuits</a></span>
and was accused by one of Donnell’s co-defendants of
stopping and spitting on him.</p>
<p>Officer Sammarco, according to evidence presented at
trial, also appears to have had an active social media
presence through the (since deleted) Twitter account
@ObamaHater55, which posted racist memes about Colin
Kaepernick and Muslims. Though Tyrell’s attorney tried
to bring up the cop’s social media posts, they were
excluded from the trial as irrelevant (the cruel irony
being that social media posts are often used as
evidence against defendants in gang cases). As in
other cases, Sammarco’s testimony helped Feinstein
connect Tyrell to a gun.</p>
<img
src="https://truthout.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021_1022-dave-sammarco-twitter.jpg"
alt="Screenshots of NYPD Officer David Sammarco's
since deleted Twitter account,
"Obamahater55."" style="margin-right: 25px;"
moz-do-not-send="true" width="452" height="313">Screenshots
of NYPD Officer David Sammarco’s since-deleted Twitter
account, “Obamahater55.”<span></span>
<p>If you note a pattern of cops with questionable
histories being used to provide testimony in gang
cases, consider that Williams, Sammarco and Villavizar
also all worked out of the 47th Precinct. But
testimony from “bad cops” is just one piece of the
puzzle prosecutors use to score convictions against
those who are gang-accused. The feds have a whole
overarching legal framework to do that.</p>
<h2>How Prosecutors Use Conspiracy and Hearsay in Gang
Cases</h2>
<p>Former Southern District Judge Billings Learned Hand
wrote almost 100 years ago that conspiracy laws were
the “darling of the modern prosecutor’s nursery.”
Decades later, federal prosecutors turned racketeering
laws, made possible by the 1970 <span><a
href="https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2463&context=flr"
moz-do-not-send="true">Racketeer Influenced and
Corrupt Organizations Act</a></span> (RICO), into
the new darling.</p>
<p>While conspiracy laws liberalized standards of proof
and allowed prosecutors to connect multiple defendants
to a crime, RICO enabled the lumping together of
people as an “enterprise.” RICO was created to peel
away the power of organized crime. Prosecutors, like
former U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani, used it against
Mafia leaders who ordered crimes but didn’t
necessarily commit them themselves.</p>
<p>While RICO may have turned the tide against the
Mafia, it didn’t end there. RICO’s reach targeted
labor unions, <span><a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/business/dealbook/rico-insys-opioid-executives.html"
moz-do-not-send="true">pharmaceutical executives</a></span>
and even the <span><a
href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-college-admissions-case-lawyers-for-coaches-others-move-to-dismiss-charges-11571181023"
moz-do-not-send="true">alleged conspirators</a></span>
of a celebrity college admissions scandal. RICO’s
footprint in communities of color, however, has
arguably been the most devastating.</p>
<p>In the 1980s, prosecutors began to use RICO against
street gangs even as critics <span><a
href="https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1025&context=mjrl"
moz-do-not-send="true">argued</a></span> this was
an overapplication. Most street gangs didn’t affect
interstate commerce, required under RICO, and were
unlikely to be able mount the costly legal defenses
that mobsters could. How, one might ask, could police
be trusted to identify who was in a gang, what crimes
were “gang-related,” or even what a gang was?</p>
<p>There were also political and cultural undertones.
RICO was used against groups formed from Chicago’s <span><a
href="https://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/almighty-black-p-stone-nation--the-products-9781569768464.php"
moz-do-not-send="true">Almighty Black P Stone
Nation</a></span>, the Black nationalist group, as
well as <span><a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/15/nyregion/94-in-latin-kings-are-arrested-citywide.html"
moz-do-not-send="true">the Latin Kings</a></span>,
who were becoming involved in police brutality
protests against New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani,
the former prosecutor, in the 1990s. <span><a
href="https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2463&context=flr"
moz-do-not-send="true">Bias</a></span>, some
noted, could also lead to a conflation of hip-hop
music groups and gangs. The Giuliani administration <span><a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/04/nyregion/hip-hop-club-gang-is-banned-in-the-bronx-cultural-questions-about-zulu-nation.html"
moz-do-not-send="true">villainized</a></span> the
legendary hip-hop collective Zulu Nation, calling it a
“gang,” and the FBI once tried to build a <span><a
href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-fbi-and-james-comey-hunted-the-wu-tang-clan"
moz-do-not-send="true">RICO case against the
Wu-Tang Clan</a></span>.</p>
<p>Beginning in 2012, the NYPD increased its anti-gang
efforts and worked closer with federal authorities.
The trial of Murray and his co-defendants, charged
like Mafia leaders, is perhaps a textbook example of
what happens when police and prosecutors use their
most powerful tools against young Black men.</p>
<p>Some days, the rear doors of Judge Paul Gardephe’s
court would swing open to reveal Murray’s fiancée and
their 7-year-old son, Adon. They sat in the courtroom
as Feinstein painted Murray’s life as one of violence
and drugs. Murray and his co-defendants, Brandon Green
and Latique Johnson, had all risked decades in prison
by going to trial. Most don’t. By <span><a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/us/stronger-hand-for-judges-after-rulings-on-plea-deals.html"
moz-do-not-send="true">one count</a></span>, 97
percent of federal cases end in a plea deal.</p>
<p>The odds against them were extraordinarily steep.
Conspiracy and RICO lower the burden of proof for
prosecutors, who essentially only have to convince a
jury of a crime that benefitted an “enterprise.” <span>Another
crucial advantage for prosecutors is allowing
normally inadmissible evidence, hearsay (someone
testifying about what someone else said), into
court. RICO also allows prosecutors to prove the
existence of an enterprise by discussing bad acts of
people who aren’t even on trial.</span></p>
<p>The linchpins to hearsay are cooperating witnesses,
or “snitches.” With the Mafia, the threat of RICO and
mandatory minimums turned some low-level soldiers,
sworn to never snitch, into snitches. However, the use
of snitches has <span><a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbylQAQz8VI"
moz-do-not-send="true">been spotlighted</a></span>
as tremendously unreliable and coercive, even the
basis for dozens of false convictions. The practice
has been so ripe for abuse that desperate prisoners
have often offered testimony against people they
didn’t even know — sometimes testifying in cases
they’d only read about.</p>
<p>By leaning on snitches, prosecutors can weave a web
of guilt. In Murray’s trial, cooperators testified
about the alleged gang, the Bloodhound Brims. However,
all were facing serious federal sentences but
receiving <span><a
href="https://fastlawpc.com/what-is-a-5k1-letter/"
moz-do-not-send="true">“5k1” letters</a></span>
from the government to recommend lighter sentences in
exchange for their testimony. Some who faced life in
prison could now hope to be released with time served.
Pat Daly, an ex-cop who’d become addicted to crack and
indicted in the <span><a
href="https://www.leagle.com/decision/infdco20180809c74"
moz-do-not-send="true">case</a>,</span> testified
that the gang ran a drug operation from his upstate
home. He got a 5k1 letter.</p>
<p>At the trial, several cooperators struggled on the
witness stand. <span>Two key cooperators were serial
snitches. </span>One complained about being
re-indicted under RICO for a crime for which he’d
already served a state sentence. Others offered
conflicting versions of the gang’s structure. While
one cooperator testified Murray was a gang leader,
another testified that he had no standing in the gang.
At least two didn’t know who Murray was. They all got
5k1 letters.</p>
<p>Prosecutors alleged Murray had been part of a 2012
shooting. <span>To prove Murray’s culpability, they
brought a jailed cooperator to the witness stand who
claimed he overheard Murray brag about it in prison.
Another witness prosecutors used to connect Murray
to that shooting was so bad that the judge later </span><a
href="http://innercitypress.com/sdny1cooperatorjones091219.html"
moz-do-not-send="true"><span>called him</span></a><span>
the worst cooperator he’d ever seen. The
cooperators’ testimonies were the only sources of
evidence connecting Murray to a violent act.</span></p>
<h2>Presumption of Guilt</h2>
<p>After weeks of trial, all three co-defendants were
convicted on most charges, though not all. <span>While
Murray was found guilty of the racketeering
conspiracy, the the jury found the government did
not prove he attempted murder as part of the
conspiracy. Ultimately, Murray was convicted of
racketeering, narcotics conspiracy and gun
possession, which could mean a sentence up to and
including life. </span></p>
<p>Murray’s mother, devastated by the conviction,
remained hopeful because he wasn’t facing a mandatory
minimum. His attorney argued for five years. Judge
Gardephe sentenced Murray to 19 years, a sentence that
would make him almost 60 by the time he is released.</p>
<p>Throughout the trial, the presumption of innocence
seemed purely theoretical — to be in a gang was a sign
of guilt, with the details to be sorted out later.
There are, of course, gangs in the Bronx, and during
the trial, there had been acknowledgement that the
gang in question was, in fact, real. Murray and
Latique Johnson were childhood friends who had mutual
aspirations in clothing and music. The jury was
persuaded to believe that they were a criminal
enterprise.</p>
<p>For the defendants and their families, their hopes
now rest on an appeals process that could take years.
The trial, fueled by decades-old tactics designed for
the Mafia and testimony from cops with a record of
alleged abuse, leaves a bitter taste in their mouths.</p>
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