Richard Rosario - "Overwhelming Evidence" - Prosecutor Misconduct

Rosario, Richard; murder; NRE: mistaken witness identification, inadequate legal defense, prosecutor misconduct, police officer misconduct, withheld exculpatory evidence, misconduct that is not withholding evidence, witness tampering or misconduct interrogating co-defendant; "OVERWHELMING"

Suggestibility issues

[733:405]; 1st Dept. 11/27/01; affirmed

"[There was] overwhelming evidence of [Rosario's] guilt."

[The 1st Dept. 'justices' who signed off on this were Richard T. Andrias, Richard W. Wallach, Alfred D. Lerner, and John T. Buckley. ]

582 F.Supp.2d 541; S.D.N.Y. 10/22/08; writ denied

"On June 19, 1996, George Collazzo was fatally shot in the head on Turnbull Avenue in [the] Bronx...At least three eyewitnesses observed the incident...though only two of them testified that Rosario was the shooter. One witness, Michael Sanchez, was a friend of the victim and present with him at the time of the shooting...He testified that an argument arose between Rosario and the victim after the victim uttered a racial epithet, and stated that he had a clear and unobstructed view of Rosario's face during the verbal quarrel...According to Sanchez, Rosario approached from behind shortly thereafter, and shot the victim with a revolver...Three weeks after the shooting, a police lineup was organized, and Sanchez identified Rosario as the shooter, and stated that he had no doubt, either at the lineup or at trial, that his identification of Rosario was correct...A second witness, Richard Davis, identified Rosario as the shooter after reviewing photographs provided by police; he testified at trial that he had an unobstructed view of the shooting."

"Two alibi witnesses -- Jenine Seda and John Torres -- testified at trial that Rosario was with them in Florida the day of the shooting...Seda testified that she specifially recalled Rosario's presence in her home, because the day of the shooting was one day before she gave birth to a son, and she further testified that Rosario was present in her home when she returned from the hospital...John Torres, Rosario's friend and the father of Seda's baby, testified at trial that on the day of the shooting, Rosario had spent the day with him purchasing auto parts for a broken-down car.

[At a post-conviction hearing:] "Fernando Torres testified that on the day of Collazo's murder, he accompanied Rosario and John Torres to buy auto parts...Chenoa Ruiz, a next-door neighbor to John Torres and Jenine Seda, testified that she observed Rosario on both June 18 and June 19, and recalled frequently feeling irritated with Rosario because he was so often 'hanging out' with John Torres, who she believed should have been tending to Seda's pregnancy...Rosario was also memorable to her, she added, because he often kept her boyfriend out late at night, which caused her problems...She stated that she specifically observed Rosario at the home of John Torres and Jenine Seda on June 19, when she picked up Seda for a doctor's appointment."

2019 WL 4450685; S.D.N.Y. 9/16/19; civil suit

"[Police Sergeant Edward] Monks pressured [several officers whom he supervised] to close the investigation quickly because the shooting had drawn significant public attention and the victim was the son of a New York City transit officer. As a result, the police did not investigate certain aspects of the case -- the officers did not identify the accomplice or his vehicle; ask [Rosario] about the accomplice; investigate the claim that the victim had been fearful of a retaliatory attack, except interview the woman the victim had allegedly slapped; and looked past the fact that [Rosario] had no connection to this woman.

"Police failed to contact any of [Rosario's] alibi witnesses.

"[T]he DA's Office [eventually] reinvestigated [Rosario's] case. It concluded [he] had not received a fair trial. His conviction was vacated on March 23, 2016, and he was released after nearly twenty years in prison. The DA's Office further concluded on September 26, 2016, that it did not have sufficient evidence to convict [him], and [the] indictment was dismissed on November 3, 2016."

from NRE synopsis (by Maurice Possley):

"On June 19, 1996, 17-year-old George Collazzo and a friend, Michael Sanchez, were walking in the Bronx when a car pulled up and two men -- one black and one Hispanic -- got out. The Hispanic man a"Rosario's defense attorney presented two alibi witnesses who said that Rosario was in Florida for the birth of his son at the time of the crime. However, the prosecution cast doubt on their testimony by emphasizing that both were friends of Rosario.

"On November 23, 1998, the jury convicted [him]..."

"Rosario appealed repeatedly in both state and federal court. None of the appeals succeeded, even though Rosario presented seven more alibi witnesses who testified that he was in Florida at the time Collazzo was murdered. Three of the new witnesses passed polygraph examinations (as did Rosario himself).

"Rosario enlisted the help of the Exoneration Initiative (EXI), a non-profit organization in New York City that works to free the wrongly convicted. In their investigation, EXI attorneys Glenn Garber and Rebecca Friedman discovered that the police and prosecution had withheld evidence helpful to the defense.

"The concealed evidence showed that in his initial recorded statement, Sanchez said that he did not see the gunman -- a statement that cast doubt on his identification of Rosario at trial.

"The police also failed to document and disclose statements from two other witnesses that the gunman addressed Collazzo by name and that the getaway car had no license plates -- suggesting that the gunman knew and specifically targeted Collazzo. There was no evidence that Rosario and Collazzo had ever met before the shooting.

"The withheld evidence also showed that before Rosario's trial, the prosecution bolstered Sanchez's confidence in his identification of Rosario by falsely telling him that Diaz had initially identified Rosario in his first statement. In fact, Diaz failed to identify Rosario in a lineup held after Rosario turned himself in to police -- another fact the prosecution did not disclose.

"Rosario's trial attorney admitted that he failed to contact more than a dozen people in Florida whom Rosario said would testify that they saw him in Florida on the day of the crime. The lawyer, who took over from another defense lawyer before trial, said he mistakenly believed that the trial judge had previously denied a request for funds to send an investigator to Florida to interview the witnesses.

"In March 2015, despite the new evidence, Bronx...Judge Robert Sackett refused to grant Rosario a new trial.

"In January 2016, Darcel Clark was sworn in as [DA] for Bronx County. At the request of EXI, Clark's conviction integrity unit began to re-examine the case and sent investigators to Florida to interview 11 alibi witnesses for Rosario.

"After its investigation, the prosecution agreed to vacate Rosario's conviction, and on March 23, 2016, Rosario was released from prison. A day earlier, Dateline NBC aired an online documentary capping a three-year investigation that featured interviews with the alibi witnesses."

"On November 10, 2016, the case was dismissed.

"Rosario filed a claim for compensation in the New York Court of Claims. It was denied in 2020.

"Separately, Rosario filed a lawsuit in 2018 in [the] Bronx...against the City of New York and several police officers, seeking compensation...The case was later moved to...the [federal] Southern District...and went to trial in 2022. A jury awarded Rosario $5 million on August 11, 2022."

[All emphases added unless otherwise noted.]

rgued with Collazzo and then fatally shot him in the head. The men fled in the car.

"At the time of the shooting, Collazzo was carrying a loaded pistol and evidence would later suggest he was involved in selling drugs.

"Detectives asked Sanchez and a food cart vendor named Jose Diaz, who was nearby at the time of the crime, to look through books of photographs of people who had been arrested in that precinct. The police said that Sanchez and Diaz identified 20-year-old Richard Rosario as the gunman.

"Rosario, who had prior convictions for robbery and possession of stolen property, turned himself in to the police on July 1, 1996. Rosario said he had been in Florida at the time of the crime, but he took a bus to New York after his family told him that he was wanted for questioning."

"Rosario went on trial in [the] Bronx...in November 1998."