Dad Of NFL Star Has 1983 Robbery Conviction Tossed With DA's Support

MOUNT VERNON, NY — The father of an NFL star will never get back the years he lost behind bars, but his name has been cleared of a 1981 robbery in a New York courtroom on Friday.

More than four decades after he was charged in an armed robbery in Mount Vernon, a judge has overturned the conviction and dismissed the underlying indictment of Jeffrey Koonce. The 67-year-old spent eight years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

Koonce has always maintained his innocence.

Westchester County District Attorney Miriam Rocah supported the defense motion for vacatur following her Conviction Review Unit's investigation into the four-decades-old armed robbery at a Mount Vernon social club. She cited newly discovered evidence in supporting the defense motion.

The DA did not oppose the defense motion for vacatur based on the position that Koonce's constitutional rights were violated due to false testimony by one of the Mount Vernon Police Department's Robbery Unit's lead detectives on the case, Daniel Salottolo, and improper photo identification methods used by Salottolo and Detective James Garcia.

Garcia and another investigator on the case, Lt. Robert Astorino, have since been convicted of federal corruption charges in 1994. The CRU investigation also revealed inconsistencies between the testimony by the single victim-witness in the case and statements made to the investigators.

"From the highly suggestive photo array and identification procedures used by MVPD detectives to the totality of new evidence found by the CRU investigation, we agree with defense counsel that Jeffrey Koonce’s 1983 conviction was tainted by such questionable investigatory processes and procedures and therefore can no longer stand by the integrity of this conviction," Rocah said in a statement released prior to the hearing.

Koonce and his attorney, Karen Newirth, appeared before New York State Supreme Court Justice James McCarty on Friday to request that the court vacate the conviction and dismiss the underlying indictment, which charged Koonce with robbery and weapons possession in connection with the June 20, 1981 shooting at Vernon Stars Rod and Gun Club, where patrons were robbed at gunpoint of jewelry, cash and other valuables.

Following a jury trial in May 1983, Koonce's brother Paul, who was in the 10th grade at the time of the crime and also indicted, was acquitted on all charges, while Koonce was convicted on all charges and sentenced to an indeterminate term of seven-and-a-half to 15 years. He served eight years in prison and was released on parole in August 1992.

According to the DA, there were several troubling aspects to the case against Koonce.

MVPD detectives presented witnesses with a highly suggestive and improper photo array that contained photos of several individuals implicated in similar crimes that did not match Jeffrey Koonce's likeness. In addition, Koonce's photo was the only one that was enlarged.

A witness, who was inside the club and shot during the time of the robbery, was in ninth grade at the time, and the only one who identified Koonce as the shooter after being shown the photo array; other witnesses told investigators it was too dark inside the club to identify faces of the armed men other than that they were young black males.

Detectives brought Koonce to appear for a "show up" identification at the hospital where the wounded witness was being treated. The witness subsequently testified at a pre-trial hearing that he was feeling pressured to quickly identify the man police brought to the hospital. The trial judge called the show up "impermissibly suggestive."

Detective Salottolo provided ostensibly false and misleading testimony at pre-trial hearings and at trial about the composition of the photo arrays.

MVPD did not interview all of the alibi witnesses provided by Koonce, including an alibi witness who is now a retired NYPD detective, and had testified that Koonce was with him in the city the night of the crime. Koonce maintains this alibi today.

After a 1991 trial for a different case involving Detective Garcia, the judge in his oral decision noted that Garcia had lied during his testimony, and the court "did not believe it could rely on almost anything Detective Garcia had to say."

MVPD detectives Garcia, Astorino and Frank Lauria were arrested in May 1994 for stealing $10,000 during an FBI sting operation and convicted of federal corruption charges. Garcia, a 21-year veteran of the MVPD, and Astorino, MVPD Chief of Detectives, were each sentenced to one year and a day in jail. Lauria, who was hired by MVPD while facing NYPD charges, was sentenced to nine months in jail.

"I feel like a burden has been lifted off my shoulder," Koonce said as a judge cleared his name, according to the AP.

The AP contributed to this story.