Years earlier than Las Vegas Raiders defensive finish Malcolm Koonce was born, his father frolicked in jail for an armed theft conviction that prosecutors now say was tainted by questionable police ways and a witness identification that was later recanted.
On Friday, a suburban New York decide agreed, erasing 67-year-old Jeffrey Koonce’s conviction and dismissing his indictment greater than 4 a long time after a 1981 theft at Vernon Stars Rod and Gun Membership in Mount Vernon.
Koonce, who spent practically eight years in jail, has at all times maintained his innocence and insisted that he was nowhere close to the membership, the place three folks had been struck by shotgun pellets as patrons had been looted of money and jewellery.
Westchester County District Lawyer Mimi Rocah backed his request to erase the conviction after her workplace uncovered issues with the case.
“I really feel like a burden has been lifted off my shoulder,” Koonce stated as a decide cleared his identify.
Rocah’s Conviction Overview Unit investigated the 1983 conviction and located proof that Mount Vernon police pressured the lone victim-witness to implicate Koonce, made Koonce’s image bigger than others in a photograph array and did not interview alibi witnesses who corroborated his declare that he was elsewhere.
A Mount Vernon detective later lied concerning the composition of the picture arrays when he testified at pretrial hearings and Koonce’s trial, and a courtroom subsequently ordered the division to vary its unduly suggestive picture identification practices, Rocah stated. One of many detectives concerned in Koonce’s case later went to jail after a federal corruption sting.
Rocah’s workplace additionally discovered that detectives harmed Koonce by failing to interview all his alibi witnesses. They embrace a now-retired New York Metropolis police detective who stated Koonce was with him within the metropolis the night time of the theft.
In a press release, Rocah stated Koonce’s conviction “was tainted by such questionable investigatory processes and procedures” that her workplace can not stand by it.
“At this time marks the tip of a 41-year injustice, as Mr. Koonce is lastly vindicated in courtroom. DA Mimi Rocah and her crew ought to be counseled for his or her dedication to seeing justice completed for Mr. Koonce,” Koonce’s lawyer, Karen Newirth, stated.
At a listening to Friday, Westchester County Decide James McCarty ordered that Koonce’s theft and weapons possession convictions be vacated and that his indictment be dismissed, citing deficiencies with the witness identification and the “totality of the unique circumstances presented by this case.”
However McCarty refused to entertain claims of police misconduct, noting in a written opinion launched along with his ruling that they “are exclusively the product of conjecture and supposition.” The decide additionally stated that the police division’s failure to interview some alibi witnesses was of little weight as a result of Koonce had a chance to name his personal alibi witnesses at his trial.
He was sentenced to 7½ to fifteen years in jail for the theft and served a shorter, simultaneous sentence for bail leaping. He was launched on parole in Aug. 1992. His brother, Paul, a highschool sophomore on the time, additionally was charged within the theft. He was acquitted.
Malcolm Koonce was born in 1998. The NFL’s Raiders drafted him in 2021. One other son, Dejuan Koonce, is a retired New York state trooper who was assigned to protecting particulars for Gov. Kathy Hochul and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
“I have some wonderful kids and they had to suffer whatever it was that society thought of me, which was not true at all, for their whole entire lives,” Koonce stated at Friday’s listening to. “This right here is vindication of everything, for them.”
Police accused Jeffrey and Paul Koonce of being among the many three males who held up the Vernon Stars membership on June 20, 1981. Patrons had been compelled to lie face down on the ground and hand over about $500 in money, jewellery and different valuables, police stated.
One of many perpetrators had a sawed-off shotgun and fired off no less than two rounds, hanging a 15-year-old and two different patrons, police stated.
Rocah’s workplace discovered that detectives used doubtful ways to compel a sufferer to establish Koonce because the shooter. He was the one particular person to take action. Others informed investigators that it was too darkish within the membership to establish the perpetrators by their faces.
The witness, a highschool freshman on the time, picked Koonce out of a photograph array that featured Koonce’s enlarged picture and smaller photographs of males who didn’t seem like him.
The witness later informed Rocah’s workplace that he didn’t keep in mind seeing any faces at the hours of darkness membership and that different patrons instantly coated him after the capturing, obscuring his view.
Detectives then introduced Koonce to the hospital the place the witness was being handled so he may establish him in particular person. The witness informed a pretrial listening to that he felt pressured to shortly establish Koonce. The trial decide referred to as the tactic “impermissibly suggestive.”
In his written opinion, McCarty stated he “is not suggesting that the single eyewitness in this case did not testify truthfully,” nor does he “discount the possibility that the eyewitness’ identification of (Koonce) was accurate.”
“However, probability will not be tantamount to proof past an affordable doubt,” the decide wrote.
Related Press author Anthony Izaguirre contributed to this report.
