Judges in Westchester County, New York, vacated the convictions and dismissed the charges against 18 defendants convicted of drug crimes and other non-violent crimes after a police officer involved in these cases was charged and then convicted of perjury.
On March 21, 2014, officers in Yonkers executed a search warrant and raided an apartment on School Street. During the raid, 49-year-old Dario Tena fell to his death from a third-floor window. One of the officers involved in the raid said that Tena ran down the hall and dove through a window that had no fire escape. Tena’s family questioned that account, noting that Tena’s injuries, particularly severe cuts on the back of his head, were more consistent with him falling backwards out of the window.
After the death, the Yonkers Police Department investigated the events leading up to the raid. Officers Christian Koch and Neil Vera had claimed in the search-warrant application that they had received information from a confidential informant about illegal activity in the apartment. That turned out to be false. The informant was imprisoned out of state.
On October 8, 2014, Vera and Koch were indicted on charges of perjury and official misconduct. They pled guilty to the charges on April 23, 2015. Vera received a sentence of six months of weekend confinement at the Westchester County Jail. Koch received eight weekends of confinement and resigned from the police force.
A week before Koch entered his plea, the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office moved to vacate the conviction of Jamar Smythe, who had been convicted by a jury in 2013 of drug possession in 2011, after Koch and another officer stopped him for what they testified was a traffic violation.
Smythe had received a sentence of 15 years in prison. After Koch’s arrest, Smythe’s attorneys asked prosecutors to review his case. An investigation by then-District Attorney Janet DiFiore revealed that the stop was not traffic-related, as the officers had testified, but had been based on a tip from a confidential informant. Smythe’s case was dismissed on May 12, 2015.
In 2018, District Attorney Anthony Scarpino, who replaced DiFiore in 2017, conducted a review of Koch’s cases. This led to five defendants having their convictions vacated and charges dismissed. The records in these cases are sealed.
On November 13, 2024, District Attorney Miriam Rocah, who replaced Scarpino in 2021, said that a more extensive investigation by her Conviction Review Unit (CRU) had led to 12 additional defendants having their convictions vacated and charges dismissed. Five of the cases were felony convictions; seven were misdemeanors. Most of the convictions, which took place between 2011 and 2014, were for drug crimes, but other convictions included disorderly conduct. All the defendants had pled guilty. These records are also sealed.
Rocah said the convictions relied on sworn statements or search-warrant affidavits prepared by Koch. She said the CRU identified “factual discrepancies” in these search warrants.
In addition, the district attorney’s office said that Koch had testified in a 2014 civil lawsuit that he had used “template” language in his search-warrant applications to establish the reliability of informants. Koch also testified in that lawsuit that he did not understand that when applying for a search warrant, he was taking responsibility for the truth and facts in the accompanying affidavit.
“The extraordinary facts revealed during the CRU’s review regarding Detective Koch’s fundamental lack of credibility and the material role that he played in these prosecutions irrevocably compromised the resulting convictions,” Rocah said.
None of the defendants in these cases were still incarcerated. Their sentences ranged from three years on probation to one year in jail.
– Ken Otterbourg
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Posting Date: 12-05-2024
Last updated: 12-05-2024