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GIST: "A man who spent more than two decades in prison before his conviction for the murder of a retired NYPD detective was dismissed due to DNA evidence has sued New York City for $100 million.
STORY: "Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez is suing city and law enforcement officials for his arrest, prosecution and incarceration, which he said tore him away from his two young children and violated his civil rights. His mother and two sons sued the city for $50 million in a separate suit, also filed in Manhattan federal court.
Police arrested Velazquez in 1998 for the fatal shooting of retired NYPD detective Albert Ward during a robbery at a gambling parlor in Harlem. A jury convicted him the next year. He was sentenced to life in prison and remained incarcerated until 2021, after then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo commuted his sentence.
Velazquez has claimed that he was at home in the Bronx when the shooting occurred, and no physical evidence connected him to the crime, according to his lawsuit. Several witnesses to the shooting initially told law enforcement that the shooter was a light-skinned Black man with braids, while Velazquez is Puerto Rican and had close-cropped hair at the time, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges that police were so set on securing an arrest for the killing of one of their colleagues that they lied, hid evidence and pressured witnesses. Velazquez claims that detectives coerced witnesses to falsely identify him as the suspect by threatening to charge them with crimes and hid records that could have cast doubt on his connection to the shooting. The lawsuit also alleges that Velazquez felt pressure to surrender to police and cooperate with the investigation because his own father, who died the year before the shooting, had served as an Amtrak police officer for about 20 years.
For years after Velazquez’s conviction, the lawsuit claims, police and prosecutors continued to withhold evidence that undermined the case against him. After repeatedly resisting requests to vacate his conviction, the Manhattan district attorney's office ultimately agreed to review the case. In 2024, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg supported Velazquez’s request to vacate his conviction after determining that new evidence likely would have resulted in an acquittal. The DA’s office said DNA testing showed Velazquez’s DNA was not on a betting slip left by the killer at the scene of the crime. A Manhattan judge tossed Velazquez’s conviction in September 2024.
“These cases are about what happens when a system values convictions over truth,” Velazquez said in a statement Friday. “For nearly 24 years, I was imprisoned for a crime I did not commit because evidence was hidden, witnesses were pressured and the truth was buried. What was done to me was not a mistake — it was the result of a system that refused to correct itself even when the evidence of my innocence was right in front of it.”
Velazquez said his arrest and conviction caused emotional distress, isolation, dehumanization and physical injuries from assaults while he was incarcerated. He said the separation from his children, partner and mother also “sever[ed] the foundational bond of their family.”
After Velazquez’s arrest, according to the lawsuit, his partner and kids became homeless. His mother stepped in to help raise the children while also supporting her incarcerated son from afar, the lawsuit states, and the stress caused a “catastrophic decline” for her health. Velazquez’s sons said in their lawsuit that growing up without their father deprived them of daily love and stability, leading one of his sons into his own cycle of incarceration.
“[T]he entire family’s stability collapsed under the weight of the wrongful conviction,” the lawsuit filed by Velazquez’s mother and sons claims.
Velazquez said in a statement that he hopes his lawsuit will prevent others from experiencing the same “horrific miscarriage of justice.” He has also advocated for clemency reform, urging the governor to commute more people’s sentences. His case was chronicled in the NBC News podcast “Letter from Sing Sing.”
The NYPD, Manhattan DA’s office and the city’s law department all declined to comment on the pending litigation.
The entire story can be read at:
https://gothamist.com/news/ny-man-whose-conviction-was-tossed-after-decades-in-prison-seeks-100m-in-new-lawsuit
A year later, the unit opened a new investigation into the case, which included DNA testing on the discarded betting slip. On April 10, 2023, the medical examiner's office said that its testing had confirmed the independent laboratory's analysis, writing: "Jon-Adrian Velazquez is excluded as a contributor to all samples where comparisons could be made."
On September 23, 2024, Velazquez's attorneys again moved for a new trial based on the DNA evidence. In addition, the motion included a report by Dr. Jennifer Dysart, an associate professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and an expert on eyewitness identification.
Dysart's report said several factors decreased the reliability of the eyewitness identifications, including the stress of the robbery, the witnesses' unfamiliarity with the perpetrator, and cross-race identification. In addition, she said the procedures used by the police department might have also contributed to a misidentification. The fillers in some of the lineups did not match witness descriptions, Dysart wrote, and the tactic of having witnesses look through hundreds of mugshots was prone to error. She wrote, "The research literature on mugshot searching suggests that witnesses often make multiple selections from mugshot searches" regardless of whether the actual perpetrator is present.
On September 24, 2024, the state, which had worked collaboratively with Velazquez's attorneys, joined in his motion for relief, asking the court to vacate the conviction and dismiss the charges because a retrial would be unjust and "nearly impossible" to prove.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
