By Alex Davidson
The lawyer for a Brooklyn man wrongly convicted of a 1985 murder in Richmond Hill said his client is seeking $50 million in damages against the state for having spent 17 years in jail for a crime he did not commit.
Oscar Michelen, speaking in a phone interview from his Mineola, L.I. office, said Angelo Martinez, 37, has a good chance of winning his lawsuit against the state. Martinez was released from jail in July 2002 after State Supreme Court Judge Stephen Fisher vacated his conviction on June 13, 2002 in the shooting death of 70-year-old Rudolph Marasco on Atlantic Avenue near 110th Street in Richmond Hill.
Martinez was released following the confession of a prison inmate to the 1985 shooting in Richmond Hill. Since then, Michelen said both the state and Queens District Attorney Richard Brown have cooperated with Martinez in collecting documents and witness testimony to prove his innocence.
“He (Angelo) had always felt that the system had failed him,” Michelen said. “He cannot get his years back, but her feels there should be some acknowledgment that the spent his life in prison.”
Martinez was arrested at the age of 20 and subsequently spent 17 years in prison before he was released.
Michelen, who hopes to bring the suit to trial this spring, said a judge in the State Court of Claims in Manhattan will decide what are considered fair and adequate damages for the losses his client suffered.
He said because New York State's court system is designed to protect the innocent, it automatically assumes something went wrong in the trial process when a person is wrongfully convicted. In Martinez's case, Michelen said, the court-appointed lawyer did not adequately defend his client during the murder trial. Michelen said he and Martinez noticed several instances in which the court-appointed attorney failed to introduce important evidence to the jury that could have proved Martinez's innocence. He said Martinez's first attorney was not experienced in criminal trials and failed to adequately defend his client.
“The case against him was a very weak one for a murder case,” Michelen said.
Michelen said Martinez did not object to how his then lawyer handled the 1985 murder trial because he had no knowledge of court proceedings. He said because Martinez was young, poor and only had a 10th-grade education, he assumed he would get a fair trial.
“He said, 'I never thought for one minute I would get convicted,'” Michelen said.
Reach reporter Alex Davidson by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 156.
