You can't discuss the Charles Hynes railroad without mentioning John Giuca...

There's been a lot of talk recently about John Giuca. I have been following this case for quite some time and I am so glad it looks like this case is finally turning around.

If you haven't been keeping up with your reading, here's the gist of the first article. I'll post about the second one later tonight or tomorrow.

First, the New York Times wrote that John Giuca's attorney, Mark Bederow, was planning to ask the new DA to overturn the conviction citing "serious flaws in the trial and misconduct by prosecutors." (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/31/nyregion/citing-misconduct-lawyer-seeks-review-of-conviction-in-03-brooklyn-killing.html)


Since the team of prosecutors was lead by Mr. Mike" Misconduct" Vecchione, no surprise there.

Mr. Bederow also points to a conflict of interest involving former DA Hynes and and Susan Cleary, whose son, Albert Cleary, was at one point a suspect in the case himself, and who became the key witness against Mr. Giuca. His involvement in this case has been the subject of some intense scrutiny over the past few years (if anyone watched the Paula Zahn episode about the case- which is now on youtube, you know what I mean. If you haven't watched it, I encourage you to. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JlhSQ8rqcA).

According to the New York Times:

"Mr. Cleary, ....was on probation in 2003 after assaulting a man and.... had waived the customary immunity that witnesses receive before testifying before the grand jury in the Fisher case, leaving himself open to prosecution.

Facing a challenging Democratic primary in 2005, Mr. Hynes received help in the form of an endorsement from the Brooklyn Republican Party’s executive committee, of which Mr. Cleary’s mother, Susan Cleary, was a member, allowing him to run as a Republican in the general election if he lost the primary. His statement at the time thanked Ms. Cleary for her support."

The article also points out that "Mr. Giuca’s conviction was considered a victory for Mr. Hynes, who was in a tough re-election fight at the time." 

Given this previous election, I think this is a point well proven. 

Before moving on, the article also says this about Mr. Cleary:

"After investigators intensified pressure on witnesses under Mr. Vecchione, two agreed to testify: Albert Cleary, one of the young men’s Brooklyn friends and who lived near Mr. Giuca, and Angel DiPietro, a classmate of Mr. Fisher who went to Mr. Giuca’s house with them. They said that they had been asleep in Mr. Cleary’s house, near where Mr. Fisher’s body was found, but that they had heard no gunshots."

The interesting thing about Angel Dipietro is, if you recall, she was actually hired by the DA's office as an ADA. The village voice's Graham Rayman wrote about this back in June (http://www.villagevoice.com/2013-06-12/news/charles-hynes-murder-witness/). 

The times wrote that: 

"Even after the arrests, Mr. Fisher’s parents said publicly that they believed others in the group of young people partying at Mr. Giuca’s house were involved in the murder. They later sued Ms. DiPietro, saying she had failed to keep Mr. Fisher safe. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2007.

In 2012, Mr. Hynes hired Ms. DiPietro as an assistant district attorney. Her father, James DiPietro, a prominent defense lawyer, has donated to Mr. Hynes several times, including $3,000 in 2012. When political opponents criticized Mr. Hynes for Ms. DiPietro’s hiring last year, he said through a spokesman that it was unrelated to the Fisher case."

 The article goes on: 

“We have thoroughly reinvestigated the case for several months, and none of the incriminating evidence that was presented to the jury was credible,” said Mr. Bederow, who also cast doubt on prosecutors’ theory of the case, saying prosecutors had presented five different chains of events at Mr. Giuca’s trial. “We believe that the entire foundation of the case against him has crumbled.

Mr. Bederow said Mr. Giuca’s prosecution was riddled with police and prosecutorial misconduct, though he declined to describe specific problems. The district attorney’s team in the case included Mr. Hynes’s longtime deputy Michael F. Vecchione, who has been accused of intimidating and coercing witnesses in other cases.

Mr. Vecchione began supervising the Fisher case after investigators spent months trying to persuade several key witnesses in the case to cooperate, to little avail. Some were friends and classmates of Mr. Fisher, a sophomore at Fairfield University, who joined him at an Upper East Side bar that night. Others were people he met that night, including Mr. Giuca, who invited Mr. Fisher and other young people to his home in Prospect Park South for the night."

Prosecutors, apparently, offered an abundance of theories. Per the article: "In one version of events, Mr. Giuca gave Mr. Russo the gun and told him to shoot Mr. Fisher after Mr. Fisher angered Mr. Giuca by sitting on a table; in another, Mr. Giuca and Mr. Russo both shot him." This doesn't really surprise me because, as I recall, the media at the time did say this was first a robbery, then over disrespect, etc. etc.

More to come on this story I am sure. I will post the rest of the articles later.