This July. 27, 2022 photo, Retired New York City Detective Louis Scarcella walks to Kings County Superior Court in the Brooklyn borough of New York During the bloody peak years of murder in New York City, Detective Louis Scarcella built a reputation for solving cases. A second-generation cop who smoked cigars, ran marathons, worked a side job at a Coney Island amusement park and jokingly put “adventurer” on his business card, the now-retired deadbeat outright lied to suspects, even praying with them. to extract information. In the 1980s and 90s, he got confession after confession. Prosecutors got conviction after conviction. But over the past nine years, nearly 20 murders and other convictions have been thrown out after defendants accused Scarcella of coercing or inducing false confessions and false witness identifications, which he denies. The same prosecution that won those convictions ended up vacating most of them. However, the Brooklyn DA has stood by many other cases the detective has worked on. For the first time, prosecutors are now retrying one of those long-overdue cases. “This defendant is still guilty,” prosecutor Chow Yun-shi said at the retrial of Eliseo Deleon, who says he is innocent. DeLeon’s murder conviction was overturned in 2019 after he spent 24 years behind bars. With a verdict set for Aug. 31, the retrial shows the difficult line the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office is walking through a decade of doubt over the work of a once-star detective. Scarcella chalked up homicides as they reached 2,200 a year citywide in 1990. There were under 500 last year. After retiring in 1999, he told “Dr. Phil” show that he had done “everything I had to do under the law” to get confessions or cooperation. “The bad guys don’t play by the rules when they kill Ma and Pop,” he said. “I don’t play by the rules, but I play by the moral rules and the rules of arrest in Brooklyn.” Years later, the DA’s office became known for its Conviction Review Unit, which reviewed hundreds of cases and agreed to exonerate more than 30 people after individual investigations. (Additionally, 90 drug convictions were thrown out en masse because of allegations of police corruption unrelated to Scarcella.) So far, 17 people in cases involving Scarcella have been effectively exonerated when prosecutors threw out convictions or refused retrials after judges overturned convictions. In two other cases — including DeLeon’s — the convictions have been overturned, but prosecutors are fighting to reinstate them. Prosecutors also concluded that the convictions should stand in dozens of other cases related to Scarcella, although some defendants are trying to convince the courts otherwise. “In each case involving this former detective, the CRU has exhaustively considered all the evidence and the decision whether to overturn or uphold the conviction is based on the facts of the particular case, taking into account previous findings about Scarcella’s conduct.” , the office of DA Eric Gonzalez. he said in a statement to The Associated Press. Prosecutors say Scarcella and his partner played only a minor role in DeLeon’s case. And prosecutors point out that two eyewitnesses — the victim’s wife and a stranger — returned to court 27 years later to re-identify DeLeon as the victim’s killer, Fausto Cordero. “We were forced to present this evidence again,” the DA’s office said. A would-be robber shot Cordero as he headed home from a religious confirmation party in 1995 with his wife and other relatives, including the couple’s 7-year-old son. A tip led police to DeLeon, then 18. Detective Stephen Chmil was assigned to the case and his partner, Scarcella, became involved. How involved is a key issue in the retrial. Case paperwork shows Scarcella accompanied Chmil and Detective Anthony Baker in DeLeon’s arrest. As DeLeon was taken to a police station, he said he was out of town when the shooting happened. At the station, Scarcella was on hand as DeLeon was read his rights, documents show. But there is disagreement over whether the detective participated in an interrogation that police and prosecutors say produced a confession grounded in a few short sentences. DeLeon says the detectives set it up. When Baker and some prosecutors later turned on a video camera, DeLeon asked for a lawyer to “make sure my situation is right.” “I’m not just going to be stupid and put myself on tape and say I did something I didn’t do. I’m not stupid,” he said in the video, which jurors in his original trial were not. you are not allowed to see. Scarcella testified last month that he didn’t remember the case but believes he wasn’t at the hearing, although Baker said Scarcella was there but didn’t say anything and Chmil said his partner wasn’t the type to stay mum . DeLeon’s lawyers don’t think Scarcella was a bit player. “Everything in this case is tainted” by Scarcella and Chmil, defense attorney Cary London said in a brief last month. He argued that the confession was fabricated and that the witnesses’ identities were inaccurate and contested. Xie said the case had “stood the test of time” and that the focus on Scarcella and Chmil was misplaced. The verdict rests with Judge Dena Douglas, who is hearing the case without a jury. Scarcella and Chmil, also retired, have spent years defending their investigations as court hearings and news stories picked apart their cases. Their attorneys say investigators used techniques that are legal and hold up today, and that prosecutors signed off on every homicide arrest and reviewed all the evidence. “Detectives worked diligently to arrest the right perpetrator and stand by their work,” attorneys Alan Abramson and Joel Cohen said in a statement to the AP. In DeLeon’s retrial, Scarcella made it clear he’s not second-guessing himself. “Are you proud that you were a good homicide detective in the 80s and 90s?” London asked. “I still do,” Scarcella said.
