QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Stefon Morant told a federal jury this week that he was hundreds of miles away from New Haven at the time of the Hill double murder that sent him to prison for two decades. “Where were you at 4 a.m. on Oct. 11, 1990?” asked Morant’s attorney, Nick Brustin.“Fayetteville, North Carolina, sleeping,” he replied."
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Morant’s statement from that interview with Raucci implicated both Morant and Lewis in the crime. It stated that the two of them drove together to the Turner-Fields apartment and that Lewis threw the murder weapon, a gun, into the river near Criscuolo Park. Morant said he left the police station around 4 a.m. on Jan. 16, 1991. He told a few people about the experience, who all urged him to recant. He returned to the station with his mother. He recalled a large, bald police officer insisting that he sign the statement. “I said, ‘I’m not signing nothing, because it’s not true.’ Me and my mother left.” “Even though the statement was coerced and fed to you, how do you feel about having made it, even today?” asked Brustin. It “destroyed not only my life but Scott’s life, allowing these people to do this to me,” said Morant. He pulled out a tissue and dabbed away his tears.
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "After that jury handed down a 70-year prison sentence, Morant spent 21 years behind bars. In 2015, he was released after receiving a sentence reduction in a Connecticut Superior Court. He eventually won a full pardon and a $5.84 million wrongful-conviction award from the state."
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STORY: "Morant details N.C. (North Carolina) alibi, "coerced statement," by Reporter Mona Mahadevan, published by The New Haven Independent, on May 20, 2026.
GIST: Stefon Morant told a federal jury this week that he was hundreds of miles away from New Haven at the time of the Hill double murder that sent him to prison for two decades.
“Where were you at 4 a.m. on Oct. 11, 1990?” asked Morant’s attorney, Nick Brustin.
“Fayetteville, North Carolina, sleeping,” he replied.
Morant and two of his aunts first presented that alibi during his original criminal trial in 1994; a jury nevertheless convicted him of the 1990 murders of former alderman Ricardo Turner and his partner Lamont Fields.
On Tuesday, Morant and one of his aunts told the same alibi to a different jury — this time one that is hearing Morant’s claim that he was wrongfully convicted after a “corrupt cop” framed him and Scott Lewis over a drug debt.
They testified in U.S. District Judge Sarala Nagala’s Hartford courtroom in the ongoing civil-rights case that Morant is advancing against the City of New Haven and six former city police detectives.
On Tuesday, Morant donned a tailored white blazer. After swearing to tell the truth, he took a seat in the wood-paneled witness box.
On Oct. 10, 1990, Morant said, he was on a mission to help his older brother, who had just been arrested in New Jersey. “I was trying to get a notary to get my big brother out of jail,” he said.
In the fall of 1990, Morant and one of his brothers had been living with their aunt, Eunice Johnson, in Fayetteville. On Oct. 10, he said he drove from Fayetteville to Summerville, South Carolina to ask for help from another aunt, Vernell Frasier. Johnson and Morant’s then-girlfriend were also in the car, he said.
On Monday, Frasier testified in federal court that Morant had asked her to notarize a bond-related document. She recalled the date clearly because it was her birthday, she said.
“We sat around for a little while, talked,” Morant recalled on Tuesday. He said a florist came by to drop off a bouquet of birthday flowers.
Johnson, Morant, and Morant’s then-girlfriend ended up driving to Georgetown, South Carolina to ask another aunt, Albertha Linnen, to sign paperwork for the bond. They returned to Fayetteville after midnight and went to sleep, he said.
That same night, Turner and Fields were murdered in their Hill apartment — hundreds of miles away from North Carolina.
On the morning of Oct. 11, 1990, Morant said he called his mother from a payphone.
Brustin displayed Linda Morant’s call records on screens in front of the jury in the Hartford courtroom. According to the document, Linda Morant received multiple collect calls from Fayetteville on Oct. 11, 1990.
Brustin also presented a fax that Linda sent from New Haven to Fayetteville on the same day. The document was something that would help secure a bond for her older son, Morant’s brother.
Morant said he stayed in Fayetteville until Oct. 16, 1990, when he took an overnight train to Connecticut.
Three months later, former police Det. Vincent Raucci left his card with Linda Morant and asked to speak with her son, Stefon.
After downing a few drinks and smoking some pot, Morant met Raucci at a gas station on State Street. Raucci drove them to the police station, where Morant said he spent the next six to eight hours.
Morant recalled telling the police dozens of times that he had “no knowledge of the crime.” Raucci “just kept saying he knew I didn’t have anything to do with it [the Turner-Fields murders]. He just wanted Scott Lewis.”
Several hours after being in the interrogation room, Morant said Raucci turned on the tape recorder.
“If I didn’t give the correct answer he wanted, he would stop and rewind it [the tape],” said Morant. “He would give me the words,” and “he wanted me to make it sound like me.”
Morant’s statement from that interview with Raucci implicated both Morant and Lewis in the crime. It stated that the two of them drove together to the Turner-Fields apartment and that Lewis threw the murder weapon, a gun, into the river near Criscuolo Park.
Morant said he left the police station around 4 a.m. on Jan. 16, 1991. He told a few people about the experience, who all urged him to recant. He returned to the station with his mother.
He recalled a large, bald police officer insisting that he sign the statement. “I said, ‘I’m not signing nothing, because it’s not true.’ Me and my mother left.”
“Even though the statement was coerced and fed to you, how do you feel about having made it, even today?” asked Brustin.
It “destroyed not only my life but Scott’s life, allowing these people to do this to me,” said Morant. He pulled out a tissue and dabbed away his tears.
The key witness who placed Morant in the Hill at the time of the Turner-Fields murder was Ovil Ruiz. Over the years, Ruiz has recanted his testimony, un-recanted his testimony, and recanted once again. During Morant’s ongoing wrongful-conviction trial, Ruiz said Morant had nothing to do with the Turner-Fields murders.
Thomas Gerarde, the attorney representing the City of New Haven in this trial, did not counter Morant’s alibi in court on Tuesday. Instead, he questioned whether Morant ever told police about his alibi.
In January 1991, “You did not say to them, ‘Hey, I was securing a bond for my brother Frank when all of this happened?” asked Gerarde.
“No, sir,” responded Morant.
“What you did say to them was that you were with Scott Lewis” on Oct. 11, 1990, driving towards Howard Avenue, said Gerarde.
Morant agreed.
“A jury heard all of the evidence,” including multiple witnesses placing Morant in North Carolina and South Carolina, and Ruiz saying Morant was in New Haven. “That jury convicted you of felony murder?” asked Gerarde.
Morant replied, “Yes, sir.”
After that jury handed down a 70-year prison sentence, Morant spent 21 years behind bars. In 2015, he was released after receiving a sentence reduction in a Connecticut Superior Court. He eventually won a full pardon and a $5.84 million wrongful-conviction award from the state."
The entire story can be read at:
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. 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. 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; 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;
