By Daniel Massey
A Brooklyn man who spent 17 years in prison for a 1985 murder he did not commit outside a Richmond Hill bingo hall has filed a $50 million lawsuit against the state.
Angelo Martinez, 36, was convicted of killing Rudolph Murasco, 70, on Atlantic Avenue near 110th Street, but a reinvestigation of the case conducted by the Queens district attorney’s office led State Supreme Court Justice Stephen Fisher to throw out the murder conviction on June 13.
“The state did not intentionally cause his unjust conviction,” said Martinez’s attorney, Oscar Michelen, who filed the suit on behalf of Martinez in State Court of Claims in Albany June 24. “What we are alleging is they should have done more. Had they done the type of investigation now back then, he would have been released in 1991.”
Michelen said Martinez is due compensation under the state’s unjust conviction statute because he did nothing to contribute to his conviction and has professed his innocence all along. He said the dollar amount of the suit “reflects the enormity of what happened” to Martinez.
Despite the dismissal of the murder conviction, Martinez may remain behind bars for as long as 14 more years because he was convicted in 1993 of selling cocaine to other inmates at the Southport Correctional Facility in Elmira, N.Y. Michelen has filed a petition in federal court to have Martinez resentenced to a lesser term. A court date has been set for July 22.
Martinez was originally sentenced to 25 years to life after a jury convicted him of the April 10, 1985 killing of Murasco outside the Atlantic Avenue bingo hall. He was identified by an eyewitness as the person who committed the shooting.
A few years later, Queens prosecutors found out a federal prisoner with mob ties, Charles Rivera, had admitted to the killing. A landlord who had a romantic relationship with Rivera’s mother wanted to rid himself of the elderly man as a tenant so he could sell his building, prosecutors said.
But Rivera failed an FBI administered polygraph exam, and Queens Assistant District Attorney James Quinn turned the information over to Martinez’s trial attorney, Jenny Maiola. Maiola, who was later disbarred on charges of stealing $300,000 from clients, failed to filed a motion to dismiss.
A year ago while looking into a separate case of a possible wrongful conviction, Quinn decided to reopen the Martinez case. Queens Assistant District Attorney Charles Testagrossa was appointed to investigate.
He reinterviewed Rivera and determined that his version of the story fit in with the facts of the crime. The final piece of the puzzle came when Testagrossa found another man, Michael Marino, who told them he had driven Rivera to the bingo hall and had heard him say “I shot the old guy,” Testagrossa told Justice Fisher June 13.
Martinez, who had a prior conviction for felony assault, pleaded guilty in 1993 to selling cocaine to other inmates, making him a three-time felony offender. He was sentenced as a career criminal to 24 years in jail, about 10 of which he has already served.
Michelen said he was confident he could get Martinez’s time behind bars reduced because the lengthy drug sentence was based, in part, on his unjustified murder conviction.
“I think the judge should acknowledge he wouldn’t have been in prison had he not been wrongfully convicted,” said Michelen.
Michelen said Martinez told him that he turned to selling drugs with the hope he could raise sufficient funds to hire a lawyer to reinvestigate his case. The attorney said he found a letter from the lawyer to Martinez, acknowledging receipt of a payment just one month after the prison drug sale.
“He was never told by his attorney that the federal government had found somebody who had confessed to his crime,” said Michelen. “Had he known, I highly doubt he would have gotten involved in the drug sale. It was an act of desperation.”
Reach reporter Daniel Massey by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 156.
