Ruddy Quezada - Perjury / False Accusation / Police Misconduct

Quezada, Ruddy; murder; NRE: perjury/false accusation, prosecutor misconduct, police officer misconduct, withheld exculpatory evidence, misconduct that is not withholding evidence, witness tampering or misconduct interrogating co-defendant, prosecutor lied in court

[631:59]; 2nd Dept. 8/28/95; affirmed

"On the evening of October 19, 1991, [Quezada] [???] pointed a gun out of the passenger-side window of an automobile, and opened fire on a group of people which included two government informants. Although the informants were not injured, one of the shots fired...struck and killed the victim, Jose Rosado.

"[At trial, there was] testimony regarding [Quezada's] involvement in the sale of narcotics and his confrontation with the two government informants a few hours before the murder."

[847:898]; Kings Cty. Ct. 7/10/07; motion to vacate denied

"[Quezada's] conviction rests primarily on the testimony of a single eyewitness...During the evening of October 19, 1991, the eyewitness, Sixto Salcedo, was in the company of a friend, John Reyes...when Reyes became engaged in an argument with [Quezada], who accused them of being informants for the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency. During the course of the argument [Quezada] punched Reyes, who in turn drew his handgun and fired a passing shot at [Quezada]. Salcedo and Reyes fled.

"About thirty minutes later, Salcedo and Reyes were standing in front of a video store...when they saw pass a brown livery cab driven by [Quezada]. Within about ten minutes, at approximately 9 p.m., a black car with darkened headlamps approached the same intersection, turning left...A man leaned out of the passenger window and fired a hail of bullets from what sounded like an automatic weapon. Having crossed the street to go to a bodega, Salcedo and Reyes watched as the man in the black car fired into a group of people, where they had been standing. They fled and found out later that a bystander, Jose Rosado, had been killed.

"The following day, after another incident, where according to Salcedo [Quezada] had fired shots from his apartment when Reyes had gone to visit [Quezada], both Salcedo and Reyes went to the police and made statements. Both men identified [Quezada] as the drive-by shooter. In his statement Reyes recounted that upon hearing gun shots from the passing car he heard Salcedo yell, 'That's Ruddy shooting, Run!' Salcedo stated that he saw [Quezada] lean out of the passenger side window and fire what he believed to be an Uzi, and that he believed that he had been the target of the shooting because Rosado was dressed in a similar fashion to the way he had been dressed.

"Salcedo was the only eyewitness who testified at trial because Reyes had been murdered a few months earlier.

"Eight years after [Quezada's] conviction the Kings County [DA's] Office received a short, unsworn affidavit from Salcedo, who had since been deported to the Dominican Republic, in which he stated that [Quezada] had not been present at the scene of the shooting, and that Salcedo had been pressured into accusing [Quezada]. A second unsworn, but more detailed, affidavit followed a few months later in which Salcedo explained the motive behind framing [Quezada] to be a personal conflict between Reyes and [Quezada] over Reyes' treatment of [Quezada's] female cousin...and...an effort to relieve pressure from [Quezada] who was accusing both Salcedo and Reyes of being 'snitches' in the drug world they inhabited.

"In the second affidavit Salcedo described how after Reyes' murder he had fled to Florida, and upon his return nineteen months later was confronted by the detective who had initially taken his statement. Salcedo stated that Detective Boda 'arrested' him and his wife and held them 'incommunicado' for two days in an airport hotel, threatening him with imprisonment if he did not confirm [Quezada's] participation as the shooter in the drive-by killing.

"[A] convicted drug gang killer, Freddy Caraballo...told federal authorities...that he had committed the murder of Jose Rosado..."

"Salcedo's recantation...was neither credible nor reliable. Pressure was exerted upon Salcedo by [Quezada's] family throughout the course of [Quezada's] prosecution and incarceration.

"Caraballo was untrustworthy, with a motive to lie."

[The author of this decision denying vacatur was Judge Abraham G. Gerges. ]

624 F.3d 514; 2nd Cir. 10/21/10; motion to allow second federal writ granted

"Quezada...insisted that he had been inside a nearby building, in the presence of others, when Rosado was shot outside the building. The defense presented three witnesses who confirmed Quezada's version."

from NRE synopsis (by Maurice Possley):

"On October 19, 1991, 29-year-old Jose Rosado was killed in a drive-by shooting as he stood on the street in Brooklyn...The police believed that Rosado was an innocent bystander and that the shots were intended for a reputed drug dealer named John Reyes.

"Two days later, police arrested 29-year-old Ruddy Quezada and charged him with Rosado's murder. Police said that the shooting was in retaliation for a shooting earlier in the day when Reyes shot at and missed Quezada in a dispute over drugs. Sixto Salcedo, an associate of Reyes, witnessed the shooting. Reyes and Salcedo identified Quezada as a passenger in the car who fired the shots aimed at them that struck Rosado instead.

"By the time Quezada went to trial in Kings County...in March 1993, Reyes had been murdered and Salcedo did not want to testify. The Brooklyn [DA's] Office, pursuant to a long-standing and secret policy, arrested Salcedo on a material witness warrant and kept him locked in a hotel room until the trial. He testified and identified Quezada as the gunman.

"At trial the prosecution repeatedly stressed that Salcedo had 'come forward' voluntarily to identify Quezada and did not disclose that Salcedo had testified only after he was arrested and imprisoned in a hotel room.

"On March 15, 1993, Quezada was convicted of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

"Quezada's appeals were unsuccessful. Meanwhile, Salcedo was deported to his native Dominican Republic after he was convicted of unrelated crimes. While there, he confided to a missionary that he had initially falsely identified Quezada because Quezada had been telling people in the neighborhood that Salcedo and Reyes were police informants. As the trial approached, he did not want to testify, but after he was arrested by police and kept isolated in the hotel, he felt he had no choice. Salcedo recanted -- in a sworn affidavit and in a videotaped statement -- and said he had been locked in a hotel room until he testified.

"In 2001, Quezada filed a motion for a new trial based on Salcedo's recantation. In 2002, federal prosecutors disclosed that during an unrelated investigation, Wilfredo Caraballo, a prisoner serving multiple life sentences for contract killings, said that he -- not Quezada -- shot Rosado. However, Caraballo also said that Quezada had hired him to shoot Reyes and Salcedo.

"Ultimately, Caraballo gave several statements to state and federal prosecutors admitting that he shot Rosado. However, when a hearing was held on Quezada's motion for a new trial, Caraballo refused to testify and asserted his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. The prosecution said Salcedo's recantation was unreliable because there was no evidence that he had been locked in a hotel room before his testimony.

"In 2015, the Brooklyn [DA's] Conviction Review Unit, which had been re-examining the case for more than a year, discovered that Marie-Claude Wrenn, the prosecutor who handled the post-conviction proceedings, knew in 2004 that Salcedo was telling the truth about being locked up in a hotel room.

"In May 2015, Wrenn testified that she had discovered a material witness warrant for Salcedo -- confirming Salcedo's account -- in 2011. She had testified years earlier during Quezada's post-conviction proceedings that there was no such warrant.

"The Conviction Review Unit conducted an extensive review of Wrenn's e-mails, going back to 2003. They found a December 2004 e-mail from Wrenn to a supervisor saying; 'I found a material-witness order for Salcedo, who was too afraid to testify, in the files. I put it on your desk.'

"On August 31, 2015, Brooklyn [DA] Ken Thompson asked that Quezada's conviction be vacated and then dismissed the charge.

"'Due to what we have uncovered, we will not continue with the hearing because to do so would be unfair to Mr. Quezada,' Thompson said in a statement. 'Since we can't try this case, we will no longer object to his release.'

"Quezada, who had been incarcerated for nearly 24 years, was released immediately. A spokesman for Thompson said that Wrenn was leaving her job as a prosecutor. In 2016, Quezada filed a claim for compensation in the New York Court of Claims, which he settled for $4.5 million in 2017. He also filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of New York which was settled in December 2017 for $9.5 million."

[All emphases added unless otherwise noted.]