According to Gothamist, Accountability NY, a group of law professors and public-interest groups have filed professional complaints against current and former Queens prosecutors who judges have criticized for misconduct in the past.
The group plans to pursue disbarment and suspension of the prosecutors.
In some cases, courts found that some prosecutors withheld evidence favorable to the defense or failed to correct witnesses’ false testimony at trial. Other cases found assistant district attorneys made inflammatory comments or asked inappropriate questions during cross-examinations and closing arguments.
In March, Judge Joseph Zayas freed George Bell, Gary Johnson, and Rohan Bolt from prison after having served 24 years for the murders of a check-cashing store owner and an off-duty police officer in East Elmhurst in 1966.
The men were wrongfully convicted because Queens prosecutors made false statements at their trial and failed to turn over critical evidence pointing to alternative suspects in the case.
The prosecutors on the case, Charles Testagrossa and Brad Leventhal resigned after the judge’s ruling. However, Accountability NY is seeking further punishment for their misdeeds.
Cynthia Godsoe, a member of Accountability NY, said, “A law license is a privilege. We can’t have prosecutors who commit egregious and often repeated misconduct. It’s too dangerous for clients, and it also undermines lawyers as a whole and the rule of law.”
Lucian Chalfen, a spokesperson for the Office of Court Administration, said, “Professors or any other individuals are free to make a complaint, should they have issue with any attorney representation or professional conduct.”
“If they feel that additional resources, short of publicity stunts, are needed to monitor the professional conduct of any attorney, they can make their case to the appropriate parties to further create and fund it.”
Accountability NY’s focus is to persuade the grievance committees that prosecutorial misconduct was an institutional problem and that all the flagged prosecutors’ career cases should be reviewed further. They plan to file more complaints focusing on boroughs other than Queens in the coming months.
“We need to bring some attention to this and get the grievance committee to do what it’s really tasked with doing and what it’s the only institution tasked with doing, which is to bring some consequences to prosecutors who violate ethics rules,” said Godsoe.
A separate Gothamist report stated that the three men wrongfully convicted of murder have finally made peace with what happened to them.
Johnson, one of the men convicted, said, “I don’t know where to begin because at this moment I feel extremely joyful,” he said.
Bell also released a statement from Green Haven Correctional Facility in which he said, “I was only 19 years old. I was just a kid– no clear understanding of the law or under my own rights. Today is the day I am going home.”
Accountability NY said it plans to continue with its flow of complaints against prosecutors who serve or have served in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, and Long Island later this summer.
