New York, New Jersey, Connecticut News: evidence

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Friday, 18 May 2012

Evidence released in George Zimmerman case

Eyewitness NewsORLANDO -- When George Zimmerman tries to convince a judge or a jury that he shot Trayvon Martin in self-defense, the evidence in the case appears to be a mixed bag.

More than 200 pages of photos and eyewitness accounts released by prosecutors Thursday show he and Martin were in a loud and bloody fight in the moments leading up to the shooting and that Zimmerman appeared to be getting the worst of it, with wounds both to his face and the back of his head.

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But the original lead detective in the case believed Zimmerman caused the fight by getting out of his vehicle to confront Martin, who wasn't doing anything criminal, and then could have defused the situation by telling Martin he was just a concerned citizen and tried to talk to him. He didn't think Zimmerman could legally invoke Florida's "stand your ground" law and should be charged with manslaughter.

Under that law, people are given wide latitude to use deadly force rather than retreat in a fight if they believe they are in danger of being killed or seriously injured, they weren't committing a crime themselves and are in a place they have the legal right to be. The original prosecutor in the case accepted Zimmerman's invocation of the law after the Feb. 26 shooting but a special prosecutor rejected his claim last month and charged Zimmerman with second-degree murder. The former neighborhood watch volunteer has pleaded not guilty, has been released on bail and reportedly is in hiding.

He and his attorney will have two more chances to invoke the law. First, they will try to convince a judge during what will be a mini-trial. If the judge agrees, the charges will be dropped although prosecutors could appeal. That is likely months away. If the judge rejects the claim, Zimmerman could they try to convince the jury and win an acquittal. A trial is unlikely to start before next year. Zimmerman's attorney, Mark O'Mara, didn't return a phone call seeking comment Thursday.

Joelle Moreno, a Florida International University law school professor, said the evidence now released makes it difficult to predict if that defense will work. She is a member of a state senator's task force examining the law.

Larry Kobilinsky, professor of forensic science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said that after reviewing the evidence, he thinks Zimmerman is in a good position.

"I think the prosecution's case has been seriously diminished by all of this evidence," he said.

Still, many of the pertinent questions remain unclear: What was in Zimmerman's mind when he began to follow Martin in the gated community where he lived? How did the confrontation between the two begin? Whose screams for help were captured on 911 calls? And why did Zimmerman feel that deadly force was warranted? Did the fact that Martin was black play a role in Zimmerman's actions?

The evidence supporting Zimmerman's defense includes a photo showing the neighborhood watch volunteer with a bloody nose on the night of the fight. A paramedic report says Zimmerman had a 1-inch laceration on his head and forehead abrasion.

"Bleeding tenderness to his nose, and a small laceration to the back of his head. All injuries have minor bleeding," paramedic Michael Brandy wrote about Zimmerman's injuries in the report.

But other evidence supports the contention of Martin's parents that Zimmerman was the aggressor.

The investigator who called for Zimmerman's arrest, Christopher Serino, told prosecutors the fight could have been avoided if Zimmerman had remained in his vehicle and awaited the arrival of law enforcement. He said Zimmerman, after leaving his vehicle, could have identified himself to Martin as a concerned citizen and talked to him instead of confronting him. The report was written March 13, nearly a month before Zimmerman's eventual arrest.

He said there is no evidence Martin was involved in any criminal activity as he walked from a convenience store to the home of his father's fiance in the same gated community where Zimmerman lived.

The lawyer for Martin's parents seized on the investigator's recommendation.

"The police concluded that none of this would have happened if George Zimmerman hadn't gotten out of his car," said attorney Ben Crump. "If George Zimmerman hadn't gotten out of his car, they say it was completely avoidable. That is the headline."

The release of evidence did little to clear up whose voice is screaming for help in the background of several 911 calls made during the fight.

Since first hearing the calls in early March, Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, has been unequivocal in saying it was her son's voice on the tapes.

But Serino wrote in a report that he played a 911 call for Martin's father, Tracy, in which the screams are heard multiple times.

"I asked Mr. Martin if the voice calling for help was that of his son," the officer wrote. "Mr. Martin, clearly emotionally impacted by the recording, quietly responded 'no.'" Zimmerman's father also told investigators that it was his son yelling for help on March 19.

"That is absolutely positively George Zimmerman," Robert Zimmerman said. "He was not just yelling, he sounded like he was screaming for his life."

Investigators sent all the recordings to the FBI for analysis. They were asked to determine who was screaming, and also if Zimmerman might have used an expletive in describing Martin. Prosecutors said in their charging documents that Zimmerman said "(expletive) punks" in describing Martin as he walked in the neighborhood.

But the analyst who examined the recordings determined the sound quality is too poor to decipher what Zimmerman uttered. In regards to the screams during the altercation, there also wasn't enough clarity to determine who it is "due to extreme stress and unsuitable audio quality."

The case has become a national racial flashpoint because the Martin family and supporters contend Zimmerman singled Martin out because he was black. Zimmerman has a Peruvian mother and a white father.

Two acquaintances painted an unflattering picture of Zimmerman in police interviews.

A distraught woman told an investigator that she stays away from Zimmerman because he's racist and because of things he's done to her in the past, but she didn't elaborate on what happened between them.

"I don't at all know who this kid was or anything else. But I know George, and I know that he does not like black people. He would start something. He's very confrontational. It's in his blood. We'll just say that," the unidentified woman says in an audio recording.

A man whose name was deleted from the audio told investigators said he worked with Zimmerman in 2008 for a few months. It wasn't clear which company it was.

The man, who described his heritage as "Middle Eastern," said that when he first started, many employees didn't like him. Zimmerman seized on this, the employee said, and bullied him.

Zimmerman wanted to "get in" with the clique at work so he exaggerated a Middle Eastern accent when talking about the employee, the man said. The employee told investigators that Zimmerman made reference to terrorists and bombings when talking about him.

"It was so immature," said the employee, who ended up writing a letter to management about Zimmerman.

Zimmerman's parents say he wasn't racist. They say he had mentored black students and had a black relative.

The autopsy says medical examiners found THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, when they tested Martin's blood and urine.

Kobilinsky said the amount was so low that it may have been ingested days earlier and played no role in Martin's behavior. He doubts the judge will even let it be used by the defense if they try to introduce it at trial.

A police report shows the 17-year-old had been shot once in the chest and had been pronounced dead at the scene. The autopsy says the fatal shot was fired from no more than 18 inches away.

In a police interview, Zimmerman's father, Robert, described the toll the case had taken on family members who also are in hiding because of safety concerns.

"It just seems like it's an avalanche and I'm standing at the bottom of it," Robert Zimmerman said.

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Associated Press writers Tamara Lush and Mitch Stacy in Tampa, Fla., Matt Sedensky in West Palm Beach, Fla., Curt Anderson, Kelli Kennedy and Christine Armario in Miami contributed to this report.

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george zimmerman, trayvon martin, u.s. & world news

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Saturday, 28 April 2012

Clemens prosecutors sought to preclude evidence

In this Feb. 13, 2008 file photo, former New York Yankees baseball pitcher Roger Clemens, left, listens to the testimony of his former personal trainer Brian McNamee, right, on Capitol Hill in Washington. The New York Times reported on its website Thursday, Aug. 19, 2010, that federal authorities have decided to indict Roger Clemens on charges of making false statements to Congress about his use of performance-enhancing drugs. Clemens and his former trainer, Brian McNamee, testified under oath at a hearing before a House committee and contradicted each other about whether Clemens had used the banned substances. (AP Photo / Susan Walsh)

FREDERIC J. FROMMERWASHINGTON -- A motion partially unsealed late Friday shows that prosecutors in the Roger Clemens case sought to keep out allegations made against the government's key witness by his ex-wife.

In the motion, prosecutors urge the judge to prevent the former star pitcher from using the damaging information concerning the witness, Brian McNamee - including that as a police officer, McNamee once placed a beer can in a dead woman's hand at a crime scene. The prosecutors argue the information is irrelevant to the trial.

The government had originally filed the motion under seal last month, arguing its contents would subject potential jurors to prejudicial information about McNamee.

In a pretrial hearing, an attorney representing The Associated Press and The New York Times urged U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton to unseal the motion. He declined to do so, saying he shared the prosecutors' fears that the information, if publicly disclosed, would complicate getting an impartial jury.

But when the jury was picked, Walton told the prosecutors that they would have to unseal information in the motion that wasn't already sealed in the New York divorce proceeding.

Walton has not yet ruled on the government's motion to keep the information out.

Clemens is accused of lying to Congress when he said he never used performance-enhancing drugs. McNamee, the pitcher's former strength coach, says he injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone multiple times, which Clemens denies.

In a motion to "preclude evidence, comment and argument regarding government witnesses' prior bad acts," the government seeks to exclude the following:

-A 2001 incident during a Yankees road trip to Florida in which police reports said McNamee was seen having sex with an incoherent woman in a St. Petersburg hotel pool. The woman told police she could not remember what happened, and the date rape drug GHB was found in her system. McNamee, who was never charged, denied he assaulted the woman but instead told police he was trying to pull her out of the pool and rescue her from drowning. But he lied to investigators, including denying he worked for the Yankees, and falsely denying knowing how the woman became incoherent. The prosecution says that with the exception of the false statements to police, the 2001 incident is inadmissible.

-McNamee's "purported misconduct" as a New York City police officer. The prosecution says that in his unpublished manuscript, McNamee admits to being docked 30 days' pay for losing his gun. He also says he "tried to create some humor to get a good laugh" by placing a discarded beer can in a dead woman's hand at a crime scene. While he wasn't disciplined, he admitted falsely telling a supervisor he didn't touch anything at the scene.

"While distasteful conduct, Mr. McNamee's action of posing the dead woman's body with the beer can does not in any way relate to Mr. McNamee's ability to tell the truth," the prosecutors argue in their filing. McNamee admits that he was disciplined for an incident that remains blacked out in the pleading but that he said he "did everything by the book that night" and that a desk sergeant failed to adequately oversee the prisoner.

Other areas the government seeks to keep out are McNamee's alleged drug abuse, past financial difficulties and potential tax liabilities.

The Clemens team has said it will try to undermine McNamee's credibility as a witness, including suggesting he had financial motives for his claims about injecting Clemens with steroids and HGH.

The trial resumes Monday after a five-day break.

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Saturday, 4 June 2011

City probe finds no evidence of blizzard slowdown

By DAVID B. CARUSONEW YORK -- In the days after a December blizzard paralyzed New York City, residents upset with the slow pace of the cleanup were further enraged by reports that the snow removal effort had been sabotaged on the night of the storm by disgruntled city sanitation workers.

But in a report released Friday, the city's anticorruption agency said that while its-five month probe of those allegations had uncovered some instances of wrongdoing - including a trip by one group of plow drivers to buy beer - it found no evidence that an organized work slowdown had taken place.

The city's Department of Investigation said it interviewed some 150 witnesses and reviewed 24 hours of video footage from surveillance cameras around the city, as well as GPS records and pictures and video submitted by residents, and found only a handful of instances where plows were either sitting still or traveling with their plows up for unexplained reasons.

The video appeared to show that the overwhelming bulk of the city's plowing fleet was in action, and that trucks seen sitting idle were actually stuck in the snow, the report said.

The report also raised questions about the credibility of the city council member who helped ignite a public furor over the rumored work stoppage.

After the Dec. 26 blizzard, City Councilman Dan Halloran gave an interview to the New York Post in which he claimed to have spoken with five city workers who confirmed there had been an organized work slowdown to protest budget cuts.

Halloran subsequently told The Associated Press he had been visited by three sanitation workers who complained that supervisors upset about a round of pending demotions had told them to go easy on the night of the storm and "basically been giving them a green light not to do their job."

Halloran, a tea party Republican from Queens, said he also spoke with two Department of Transportation supervisors who claimed they had been instructed to sit idle for hours, rather than get to work plowing streets.

In its report, however, the Department of Investigation said that when it interviewed the two transportation supervisors, they strongly disputed Halloran's account. Both said they had no knowledge of any work slowdown and were caught off-guard when Halloran unexpectedly grilled them about it during a casual lunch meeting.

"Supervisor 2 said that the meeting was very uncomfortable and he felt like Mr. Halloran was `annoyed' that they did not have any information that would confirm a slowdown. He said the encounter was brief, several minutes," the report said.

The supervisors also told investigators they were shocked when news articles began appearing in which Halloran described them as whistleblowers.

"Supervisors 1 and 2 also said they were upset because Mr. Halloran's statements made it seem as though they were part of a group of five City employees who provided Mr. Halloran with concrete information to corroborate a slowdown when, in fact, they asserted that is not what they said," the report said. Both men denied making any statements about being held back on purpose during the storm.

Halloran has declined to reveal the names of the three other city workers with whom he allegedly spoke. Initially, he claimed he was doing so to protect their privacy. The DOI report said Halloran later told investigators he only knew the workers' first names and was having difficulty contacting them. Finally, he said publicly that since he was a lawyer, and the men had come to him for advice, legal ethics barred him from revealing who they were.

Asked for comment, Halloran issued a statement through his spokesman that didn't address whether he had mischaracterized his conversations with the workers.

"Disturbing questions remain about why plows went down streets with their blades up or sat unmoving for hours as the snow fell," it said. "My constituents expect me to shed a light on problems and come up with solutions, and I am going to do that, even when it makes the powers that be uncomfortable."

Harry Nespoli, president of the Teamster's local that represents sanitation workers, said he thought the Department of Investigation report vindicated the plow drivers.

"But all it does is make me more angry," he said, adding that hard-working Sanitation Department employees had to endure insults in the street because of the episode. "I think Mr. Halloran should turn around and address the sanitation workers in this city. I just don't think (what he did) was right."

The report did provide some criticism of the way New York City officials handled the storm. An unusual number of plows became stuck in the snow at some point, and the report questioned whether too many drivers were instructed to sit with their vehicles for many hours until help arrived, rather than being put to work in some other fashion. The probe also found that 44 percent of the snow chains deployed on plows broke during the cleanup.

Investigators also recovered surveillance video, first identified by the New York Post, showing one sanitation crew buying beer at a convenience store in Brooklyn while they were still in uniform and on the job.

Disciplinary actions have begun against those workers, city officials said.

holiday blizzard, winter storm, snow, snow storm, accuweather

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