Dateline NBC

Jon-Adrian "J.J." Velazquez, in his cell at New York's Sing-Sing prison in 2011.

The Manhattan district attorney will not reverse the conviction of a New York City man found guilty of killing a retired police officer during a botched 1998 robbery in Harlem, saying its re-investigation of the high-profile case found no evidence to warrant tossing the verdict. Defense attorneys called the decision “unjust” and a “tragedy” and vowed to continue their fight to free the man.

Jon-Adrian “J.J.” Velazquez was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life for the shooting death of Albert Ward at the illegal numbers parlor the former NYPD officer operated.

Velazquez, who said he was at home speaking on the phone with his mother at the time of the robbery, has always maintained his innocence. His case and new information suggesting he may have been wrongfully convicted were the focus of a “Dateline NBC” investigation last year and his innocence has been championed by actor Martin Sheen.

The decision comes after an 18-month re-investigation, and is the highest-profile case yet handled by the Manhattan DA’s conviction integrity unit, which was created in 2010.

Robert Gottlieb, one of Velazquez’s lawyers, called the decision misguided and said there was never an “honest investigation.”

“We are outraged and furious by the claim of the district attorney that there was a reinvestigation,” he said. “The truth is the so-called reinvestigation was a joke and a farce.”  Gottlieb, a member of Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance’s transition team in 2010, added, “The conviction integrity unit is nothing more than a conviction protection racket.”

Erin Duggan, chief spokeswoman for the DA, defended the review.

The DA’s Conviction Integrity Program “voluntarily undertook an extensive reinvestigation of the Velazquez case that included interviewing many witnesses and conducting an in-depth review of documentary and physical evidence from a range of sources,” she said in a statement.

The crime at the center of the case occurred on Jan. 27, 1998. About half a dozen people, nearly all drug users or dealers, according to trial testimony, were inside the gambling parlor when two men came in and announced a robbery.  Witnesses told police that one of the men had a gun; the other started binding people with duct tape.  A struggle ensued and Ward, the former cop, was shot once in the head.  

The Manhattan DA’s office has been looking into the case since October 2011 at the request of Velazquez’s attorneys, who this week received a 16-page letter from the DA informing them of its conclusion. The letter was reviewed by NBC News.

“After this lengthy reinvestigation, we have not found evidence sufficient to demonstrate that Mr. Velazquez is innocent, as he claims, of the crimes for which he was tried and convicted,” said Duggan, the DA’s spokeswoman. “The reinvestigation also did not uncover any constitutional infirmity in the pretrial proceedings or the trial itself. Having considered the totality of the evidence from the trial and proffered by Mr. Velazquez’s counsel, and the finding of guilt by a jury that had a full opportunity to weigh the testimony of all of the witnesses, the office cannot consent to vacate the defendant’s conviction.”

Velazquez’s defense team initially provided conviction integrity investigators with accounts from two witnesses who they say recanted their identification of Velazquez as the gunman. They later also told them about two witnesses who came forward in 2012 with information about a man named “Mustafa,” who had allegedly confessed to the crime, according to Gottlieb

But Gottlieb, who was present during the questioning of the witness, said the DA’s investigators aggressively interrogated the witnesses and ultimately discounted their accounts.

 “Our witnesses who had the courage to come forward were treated like criminals when they agreed and did speak to the district attorney,” Gottlieb said.

Gottlieb also says investigators did not re-interview Velzaquez’s mother, Maria, or Vanessa Cepero, his then-girlfriend, both of whom swore under oath that Velazquez was at home on the phone at the time of the robbery.

Unanswered questions
According to Gottlieb, other important questions surrounding the case have been left unanswered by the DA’s investigation, including: 

• Why initial descriptions of the gunman bear no resemblance to Velazquez?
• What, if any, relationship exists between Velazquez and Derry Daniels, a career criminal who pleaded guilty to acting as Velazquez’s accomplice in the attempted robbery? Velazquez told NBC News he has never known or met Daniels, and the DA’s letter acknowledges there is no evidence linking the men. Daniels, who spent 10 years in prison and is now free, did not cooperate with either DA or defense investigators.
• Why don’t investigators believe the key witness, Augustus Brown, who was the first to identify Velazquez as the gunman but later recanted? Brown now says he picked Velazquez’s photo  randomly from the hundreds of photos police showed him.
• What evidence exists to rule out other possible suspects identified by defense attorneys? The DA said in its letter that it investigated the leads about “Mustafa,” but did not detail what led to the conclusion they were not valid.

Gottlieb said his office will now file a court motion to vacate Velazquez’s conviction, meaning a judge will ultimately make the final decision whether or not the conviction would stand.

Questions about Velazquez’s involvement in the shooting arose even before his conviction.

Courtesy of Maria Velazquez

Jon-Adrian Velazquez with Vanessa Cepero, his then-girlfriend, and two sons shortly before he was arrested in 1998.

According to police records, within hours of the murder, all witnesses gave police similar descriptions of the gunman as “a light-skinned black male,” with “dreadlocks” or “cornrows.” The shooter’s accomplice was described in police reports as a “dark-skinned black male.” At the precinct, witnesses were shown books with hundreds of mug shots.  Records show that none recognized the gunman, but one identified Daniels as the accomplice. Daniels was arrested and eventually pleaded guilty to first degree robbery.

A sketch of the gunman was plastered all over Harlem. Police files show tips came in, and one name kept popping up:  “Mustafa,” who several tipsters said was a drug dealer with dreadlocks who fit description of the shooter.  According to NYPD reports, “Mustafa” was the “prime suspect.”

Dateline NBC

The "wanted" poster distributed by police immediate after the Jan. 27, 1998, slaying of former NYPD Officer Albert Ward.

While carrying out a city-wide search for “Mustafa,” police also sought two witnesses who fled the scene:  Augustus Brown, the heroin dealer, and a heroin addict named Lorenzo Woodford, according to the reports.  They found Woodford first, who also described the shooter as a “black male” with “cornrows.”  Then, Woodford told the cops where they could find his drug dealer, Brown.  

Detectives picked up Brown, who told them the shooter was “a light-skinned black male” with “jet black curly hair.”  Then, police reports show, that Brown looked at more than 1,800 photographs over nearly eight hours before saying, “That’s the guy, but his eyes look different in the picture.”

Police immediately began searching for the man whose photo was picked out by Brown: then-22-year-old Jon-Adrian Velazquez, a Hispanic man who had never wore his hair in dreadlocks, records show. And the active search for the previous suspect, “Mustafa,” ended.

Months earlier, Velazquez had been arrested for drug possession, according to police records – and while he was never convicted of that or any other crime, police had his mug shot in their files.

When Velazquez heard police were looking for him, he turned himself in, saying he had no knowledge of the crime, and volunteered to appear in a line-up, the records show. There was no physical or forensic evidence linking Velazquez to the crime."

In addition to Brown, two other witnesses – brothers with criminal and drug histories -- picked Velazquez out, and he was arrested for murder.  At his trial, Velazquez, his mother and then-girlfriend all testified he was at home in the Bronx, on the phone with his mother during the robbery, and produced phone records in an attempt to prove it. But the jury, which didn't hear about "Mustafa,"  didn’t buy it, and Velazquez was sent away for 25 years to life.

Last year, NBC’s “Dateline” reported that at least two of the witnesses who identified Velazquez had recanted.

Related stories:

Witness error: How mind tricks can put the innocent behind bars

Conviction: A reporter's 10-year quest for answers in little-known murder case

Brown, the witness who first identified Velazquez, told NBC News that when he was brought in by police to look at photos, he had 10 bags of heroin in his possession. He also said that police pressured him to make an identification. Only after he picked someone at random – who turned out to be Velazquez -- was he allowed to leave the precinct station, he said, adding that he was allowed to take the drugs with him.

A second witness, who had identified Velazquez in court, also recanted last year, telling NBC News, “I told police that this was the guy and I was sure, but this was not the truth.”  The witness, who was facing a drug charge of his own at the time, said, “I felt pressured because the police were threatening to arrest me.”

In its letter to Velazquez’s lawyers, the DA’s office said it had re-interviewed Brown, who “unequivocally” stood by his recantation. But that alone was insufficient to reverse Velazquez’s conviction.

The second witness, however, "has withdrawn his recantation, and we will likely never fully understand the reasons for his varied statements,” the letter said. 

Gottlieb, the attorney for Velazquez, said his client was “’sorely disappointed’, but understood, as we did, where this was going for the past many months. He still believes the truth will set him free.”

Dan Slepian is an investigative producer with "Dateline." Click here to send him an email; Miranda Leitsinger, an NBC News staff writer, contributed to this report.

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For 14 years, Jon-Adrian "JJ" Velazquez has lived  behind bars, convicted  and sentenced to 25 years to life for murder.  As the years have passed, JJ has been a reluctant bystander to his own life, watching his world change from inside prison walls. In that time, his two sons have grown from children to teenagers. Jon-Adrian, Jr. was 5 when his dad was taken from him; his brother Jacob was just a month old. Their mother, JJ's girlfriend at the time, moved on with her life, and found a new relationship a few years after he went away. Yet through it all, one thing has remained constant: JJ has always insisted that he is innocent. 

Courtesy of Maria Velazquez

Jon-Adrian Velazquez with his girlfriend and two sons a month before he was arrested in 1998.

I first heard about JJ in 2002, when I was working on a different "Dateline segment that detailed the plight of two men who were convicted of the 1990 murder at the Palladium nightclub in New York City.  The men insisted they were innocent, and in an unusual twist, they had a veteran NYPD detective and a respected former federal prosecutor fighting for them. It would take five long years to finally see those men vindicated. We documented many disturbing revelations along the way, and it was all told in our 2007 broadcast, "In the Shadow of Justice." 

Inside the prison, JJ heard about our investigation of the Palladium case, and he began to write me letters. The first one arrived on Dec. 5, 2002.  Having worked at "Dateline" for 16 years, I've received many similar pleas from inmates who declare they are innocent. Most are either lying or don't have the proof to back up their claims. But there was something about JJ's letters that stirred something in me. So I decided to visit him, and to be open to the possibility that maybe he was telling the truth.  As we sat down in the visiting room at the maximum security Greenhaven Correctional facility, I was surprised to find  that he was not withdrawn or despondent or even resigned to his fate. To the contrary, he was vibrant, articulate and adamant not just of his innocence but of his eventual vindication.

Witness error: How mind tricks can land the innocent behind bars

At that meeting, I remember JJ challenging me to try and find him guilty. He wanted me to turn over every stone. He insisted that he was an innocent man. I promised him I would take him up on his challenge, but if he lied to me about anything -- even one time -- I wouldn't be coming back. He didn't appear concerned. 

The more I learned, the more I was drawn to the story. If the Palladium case represented a bureaucracy gone terribly wrong, JJ's story was something entirely different. It was the story of a 22 year old man convicted on painfully thin evidence and then forgotten, no longer represented by attorneys and without legal recourse. He filed his own final appeal to the courts, and was denied. He couldn't afford his own investigation, and with nowhere else to turn for help, he wrote to me and asked for it.

It's taken 10 years, but on Sunday, you will hear JJ's story. You will hear from the witnesses who convicted him. You will meet one of the jurors who said, "Guilty." You will meet the lawyers who now say a grave injustice was done, and learn of the evidence that they say should set him free. 

Despite his guilt or innocence, what's most interesting to me about JJ's story is how difficult it is to get a case reconsidered once a jury has rendered a verdict.  The experts will tell you that any inmate who has been convicted by a jury faces an uphill battle – and with good reason. The hard truth is once convicted and considered by an appellate court, the cell door locks and it won't reopen without evidence short of a confession from the real killer or DNA -- something that seems about as likely as lightning striking that lock. And sometimes even that isn't enough.

For good or bad, that's the system. But one thing is for sure: to stand up to it, and to withstand it, you'll need a healthy dose of conviction.

Dan Slepian is a producer at "Dateline NBC."  Click here to send him an email.

Dateline NBC

Kathleen and Michael Peterson in happier times.

Michael Peterson, the best-selling author whose 2003 murder conviction in the death of his wife inspired the movie "The Staircase Murders," has been granted a new trial.

Peterson's motion for a new trial was granted Wednesday based on new evidence suggesting that the original investigation was botched and a bizarre alternative theory that has drawn support from scientific experts: the possibility that an owl killed Kathleen Peterson in Durham, N.C., in 2001.

The case had already drawn widespread international attention because of Peterson's fame — his novels "The Immortal Dragon," "A Time of War, A Bitter Peace" and "Charlie Two Shoes and the Marines of Love Company" were well-reviewed and became best-sellers.

Kathleen Peterson, 48, was found dead at the bottom of a staircase at the family's home in Durham. Her husband, now 68, was sentenced to death after his conviction in 2003, but his family has been seeking a new trial based allegations that the State Bureau of Investigation mishandled the case.

Last year, a State Bureau of Investigation agent leading the case was fired after he was found to have mishandled evidence in 34 criminal cases. That was the basis for the ruling Wednesday by Hudson, who set bond at $300,000 and ordered Peterson held under electronic house arrest.

The case has also been closely followed because of an alternative defense explanation that has become known as the Owl Theory.

That evidence included a feather that was found at the scene and affidavits from neuroscientists and veterinary experts — including specialists from the Smithsonian Institution — saying the wounds on Kathleen Peterson's head were consistent with those that would occur if an owl had somehow become entangled in her hair.

In 2007, the case was the subject of "The Staircase Murders," a highly fictionalized account starring Treat Williams. It was also the subject of a 2006 "Dateline NBC" investigation, which raised the question of whether blood splatters at the scene were inconsistent with a blunt-force trauma attack.

Read the full 2006 "Dateline NBC" report

Kathleen Peterson's sister, Candance Zamperini, urged Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson not to grant Peterson's request for a new trial earlier this month, telling him: "Ten years I've been without my sister. Ten years her daughter hasn't had her. And 10 years the rest of us have been alive and had our freedom, but not Kathleen."

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