52 Amended Complaint

Case 1:22-cv-03251-DG-PK Document 52 Filed 10/14/22 Page 1 of 80 PageID #: 362
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
GEORGE BELL,
22 Civ. 3251 (DG)(PK)
Plaintiff,
AMENDED COMPLAINT
-against-
JURY TRIAL DEMANDED
CITY OF NEW YORK; POLICE OFFICER
LOUIS PIA; POLICE OFFICER RICHARD SICA;
POLICE OFFICER PAUL HEIDER; POLICE
OFFICER FRANK BOVINO; POLICE OFFICER
MARYANN BUBELNIK; POLICE OFFICER
DENNIS BROOKS; POLICE OFFICER
WILLIAM NEVINS; and NANCY
CARDAMONE, AS ADMINISTRATRIX OF
THE ESTATE OF POLICE OFFICER ANDREW
CARDAMONE,
Defendants.
Plaintiff George Bell, by his attorneys, Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel
LLP and Scott Stevenson, Esq., alleges as follows:
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
1. On June 11, 1999, Plaintiff George Bell was convicted of a double homicide,
including the murder of an off-duty police officer, a crime he did not commit.
2. Mr. Bell was 19 years old at the time of his arrest. Mr. Bell’s conviction was
vacated and he was finally freed at the age of 44, having spent over 24 years in prison.
3. Police and prosecutorial misconduct caused this tragedy. The investigation, trial,
and conviction of Mr. Bell were tainted by a coerced confession, the fabrication of evidence, and
the withholding of voluminous Brady material that made it clear that a local robbery ring called
“Speedstick”—not Mr. Bell—had committed the crime.
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4. Despite the flimsiest of evidence against him and clear evidence pointing to other
suspects, Mr. Bell was charged with capital murder for the deaths of Charles Davis, an off-duty
NYPD policeman, and Ira “Mike” Epstein, a Queens businessman, in the failed robbery of Mr.
Epstein’s check cashing store on December 21, 1996. For 30 months, he faced the possibility of
execution by the state. Mr. Bell is only here today to see himself exonerated because a jury
spared his life at the penalty phase of his flawed trial.
5. Mr. Bell’s entire adult life was destroyed by the police and prosecutors.
6. The state’s case against Mr. Bell hinged on a confession obtained by threatening
and beating a sleep-deprived and terrified Mr. Bell. Mr. Bell’s police interrogators told him he
would never see his family again and that he would get the electric chair unless he cooperated.
When Mr. Bell proclaimed his innocence, he was brutally beaten. Mr. Bell was threatened with
further violence unless he confessed. After hours of physical assaults and psychological terror,
Mr. Bell relented to his tormentor’s demand that he confess to a crime he did not commit. Mr.
Bell repeated the facts the police had fed to him and falsely implicated himself in a double
homicide to end his ordeal.
7. The ordeal, however, did not end as Mr. Bell faced more police and prosecutorial
misconduct leading up to and during his trial.
8. Law enforcement withheld mountains of Brady material, as recent investigations
have revealed. This exonerating evidence would have proven that members of a local armed
robbery gang called Speedstick, not Mr. Bell, had committed the murders.
9. Based on Mr. Bell’s coerced confession and without the exonerating Brady
material, Mr. Bell was convicted of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison
without parole.
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10. Mr. Bell served over twenty-four years of his sentence before the truth—that his
conviction was the result of flagrant misconduct by both police and prosecutors—came to light.
11. Mr. Bell was finally freed in March 2021 when the Queens District Attorney’s
Office (“QDAO”) asked the state court to vacate Mr. Bell’s and his co-defendants’ convictions.
12. The judge who granted Mr. Bell his freedom, Justice Zayas, made no secret of his
view that Mr. Bell’s conviction was the result of deliberate violation of his constitutional rights.
13. In granting Mr. Bell’s motion to vacate, Justice Zayas castigated law enforcement
and found that their handling of Mr. Bell’s case “leaves the distinct impression that the
suppression of the [exonerating] information was not an isolated instance of misconduct, but part
of a larger pattern of behavior that was calculated to deprive the defendants of fair trials, which is
particularly egregious given that the death penalty was being sought against 19-year-old George
Bell.” People v. Bell, 71 Misc. 3d 646, 665 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2021). Justice Zayas rejected the
QDAO’s claim that Mr. Bell’s false conviction was product of mere “good faith” mistakes: “The
extensive record before the Court . . . makes clear that . . . the District Attorney’s Office . . .
deliberately withheld from the defense credible information of third-party guilt that was in its
possession and that had in fact been investigated.” Id.
14. Three months after Mr. Bell’s conviction was vacated, the QDAO announced it
had conducted an “extensive and exhaustive investigation” of the murders at issue, and found no
evidence linking Mr. Bell to the crime. The QDAO dismissed all charges against Mr. Bell.
15. The two Assistant District Attorneys who sought and obtained Mr. Bell’s unjust
murder conviction—ADAs Brad Leventhal and Charles Testagrossa—have both since resigned
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in disgrace and may well be disbarred, suspended, or otherwise disciplined for their misconduct
in this case.1
16. Tragically, this egregious prosecutorial misconduct was not an isolated incident.
The QDAO’s practice—as Justice Zayas found—was to condone prosecutorial misconduct and
encourage the regular suppression of Brady material.
17. Mr. Bell suffered indescribable loss and agony as a result of the conduct of the
police and the unlawful practices of the City. This lawsuit seeks to compensate Mr. Bell for the
prime years of his life he lost as a result of his unjust and wrongful conviction.
JURISDICTION
18. This Court has federal question jurisdiction, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §1331 and
1343 over claims arising under 42 U.S.C. §1983.
19. Supplemental jurisdiction over Mr. Bell’s pendent state law claims exists pursuant
to 28 U.S.C. §1367(a).
20. Plaintiff has complied with the requirements of New York General Municipal
Law Section 50-I. Mr. Bell served a notice of claim on the Municipal defendants on July 15,
2021, within the time required by New York General Municipal law Section 50-e. More than 30
days have passed since the service of the Notice of Claim.
21. On September 15, 2021, Mr. Bell submitted to a hearing pursuant to New York
General Municipal law Section 50-h.
22. Plaintiff demands a trial by jury.
1
See George Joseph, Prosecutors Wrongfully Convicted Three Men Who Spent 24 Years Behind Bars. Will They Be
Disbarred?, Gothamist, https://gothamist.com/news/prosecutors-wrongfully-convicted-three-men-who-spent-24-
years-behind-bars-will-they-be-disbarred (May 6, 2021) (reporting that a group of law professors have filed official
grievances against Leventhal and Testagrossa with the disciplinary committee
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VENUE
23. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §139l(b), venue is proper in the Eastern District of New
York, the judicial district in which multiple Defendants reside, where the City of New York
conducts its business, and in which all events giving rise to the claim took place.
PARTIES
24. Plaintiff George Bell is a citizen and resident of the State of New York.
25. Defendant City of New York (“City”) is a municipality that is a political
subdivision of the State of New York. The City was the employer of the New York City Police
Department (“NYPD”) Defendants Louis Pia, Richard Sica, Paul Heider, Frank Bovino,
Maryanne Bubelnik, Andrew Cardamone, Dennis Brooks, and William Nevins, and was at all
times relevant to this Complaint responsible for the policies, practices, and customs of the
Queens County District Attorney’s Office.
26. Defendant Louis Pia, at all times relevant to this complaint, was a duly appointed
police officer of the NYPD, acting under color of law pursuant to the statutes, ordinances,
regulations, policies, customs, and usage of the City of New York and the State of New York.
Defendant Pia was assigned as a detective to the 115th Precinct. At all times stated herein
Defendant Pia was acting within the scope of his employment.
27. Defendant Richard Sica, at all times relevant to this complaint, was a duly
appointed police officer of the NYPD, acting under color of law pursuant to the statutes,
ordinances, regulations, policies, customs, and usage of the City of New York and the State of
New York. Defendant Sica was assigned as a detective assigned to the 115th Precinct. At all
times stated herein Defendant Sica was acting within the scope of his employment.
28. Defendant Paul Heider, at all times relevant to this complaint, was a duly
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New York. At all times stated herein Defendant Heider was acting within the scope of his
employment.
29. Defendant Frank Bovino, at all times relevant to this complaint, was a duly
New York. At all times stated herein Defendant Bovino was acting within the scope of his
employment.
30. Defendant Maryann Bubelnik at all times relevant to this complaint, was a duly
New York. At all times stated herein Defendant Bubelnik was acting within the scope of her
employment.
31. Defendant Nancy Cardamone is the Administratrix of deceased Defendant Policer
Officer Andrew Cardamone (hereinafter “Defendant Cardamone”). At all times relevant to this
complaint, Defendant Cardamone was a duly appointed police officer of the NYPD, acting under
color of law pursuant to the statutes, ordinances, regulations, policies, customs, and usage of the
City of New York and the State of New York. At all times stated herein Defendant Cardamone
was acting within the scope of his employment.
32. Defendant Dennis Brooks at all times relevant to this complaint, was a duly
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New York. At all times stated herein Defendant Brooks was acting within the scope of his
employment.
33. Defendant William Nevins at all times relevant to this complaint, was a duly
New York. At all times stated herein Defendant Nevins was acting within the scope of his
employment.
34. All Defendants other than the City of New York are collectively referred to as the
“Individual Defendants”.
FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS
Nineteen-Year-Old George Bell
35. At the time of his arrest, George Bell was an extraordinarily unlikely suspect in a
vicious double-homicide.
36. Mr. Bell was 19 years old and had no criminal record.
37. Mr. Bell had limited mental capacity. The New York State Department of
Education had classified Mr. Bell as “Mildly Mentally Retarded.”
38. At the time of his arrest, Mr. Bell held a stable job as a stock boy at Old Navy. He
had taken the exam to join the United States Navy.
39. He was succeeding with the support of his loving family. Many of these family
members testified at the penalty phase of his criminal trial about Mr. Bell’s kind and tender
nature and his close loving relationship with his parents and his siblings.
40. One of the QDAO’s trial prosecutors, ADA Brad Leventhal, even concurred in
this assessment, but perversely used it against Mr. Bell to try to persuade the jury to impose the
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death penalty, arguing that “It’s difficult to imagine a family that could have been more loving or
supportive,” but that Mr. Bell nonetheless was unredeemable.
41. None of these facts made the police or the prosecution ever think twice before
pursuing his conviction and the death penalty or, when they failed to kill him, sending him to
prison for life without the possibility of parole. He was a Black teenager living in a working-
class neighborhood, and law enforcement, egged on by a rabid Mayor (Rudolph Giuliani) and the
tabloids, was quick to assume he committed this grisly crime. Neither his law-abiding life with
his supportive family nor the lack of any physical evidence tying him to a double homicide made
a shred of difference to the Defendants.2
An Off-Duty Police Officer and a Store Owner are Murdered in Queens
42. In the early morning hours of December 21, 1996, Ira “Mike” Epstein, the owner
of a local check cashing store on Astoria Boulevard in East Elmhurst, Queens, and NYPD
Officer Charles A. Davis, who was working off-duty as Epstein’s security guard, were shot and
killed in the failed armed robbery of Epstein’s store (the “Astoria Boulevard Murders” or the
“Murders”).
43. A manhunt for the killers began immediately. The New York Times described an
“intensive sweep throughout northwestern Queens” that ensued in an attempt to identify and
arrest the perpetrators — with “thousands of cars” stopped, “thousands of summonses” issued,
and “hundreds of suspects” questioned. Randy Kennedy, 3 Charged in Killings of Officer and
Businessman in Queens, N.Y. Times, Dec. 26, 1996.
2
It is also worth noting that neither of Mr. Bell’s co-defendants was a likely suspect in a double homicide either.
Gary Johnson was a 22-year-old store clerk with no criminal record. Rohan Bolt was a 35-year-old married father of
four and owner of a local Caribbean restaurant, who did not know Bell or Johnson and whose criminal record was
only minor marijuana-related violations from years prior.
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44. Then-Mayor Giuliani and top NYPD officials immediately declared that they
“would not rest” until the crime was solved and began exerting intense pressure on the Police
Department to solve this “Christmas Tragedy” before the holiday a few days away.
45. The initial investigation of the crime immediately pointed to a local gang (later
revealed to be known as “Speedstick”) that had committed multiple similar armed robberies
around the neighborhood.
46. The day after the murder, the Daily News reported that a “gang” had “ambushed”
Epstein and Davis and that “[i]nvestigators believe the killers may be the same robbers who hit
two other check-cashing businesses in Queens last week, the latest one on Friday [December 19,
1996] in Queens Village.”
47. Consistent with this belief that a local gang that had robbed two other check-
cashing businesses in the neighborhood had also committed this crime, the NYPD covered the
neighborhood with wanted posters stating that the suspects “were involved in a past robbery at a
check cashing business in the 105 Pct. [in Queens].” These wanted posters described the suspects
as three black men ranging from 5’11” and 6’3” in height and weighing 180, 185 and 190
pounds, respectively.
48. George Bell did not fit any of these descriptions. At the time, he was 5’10” and
weighed only 150 pounds. He was a skinny teenager. He had no criminal record.
49. The NYPD also put out an “all points bulletin” which pointed to this stickup gang
as the lead suspects. The bulletin described three suspects in a robbery of another check cashing
store nearby and stated that “two of the above individuals may be connected to the murder of the
police officer on 12/21/96 in 115PCT.”
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50. Again, the suspects described were taller than George Bell and weighed
significantly more.
51. This “all points bulletin” was withheld from Mr. Bell’s counsel until after his
trial.
52. Police DD5s that were not produced until Mr. Bell’s case was reinvestigated in
2020 demonstrate that the police believed the two robberies of check cashing stores in Queens
two days apart had similar “MOs,” including the time of day the robberies occurred, the number
of participants, and the method of entry into the store.
Mr. Bell is Implicated by a Mentally Unstable Drug Dealer
53. On December 23, 1996, police arrested 20-year-old John Mark Bigweh for selling
marijuana.
54. Bigweh was on probation for robbery and assault charges and faced significant
criminal and immigration consequences if he did not cooperate with the police.
55. Police saw an opportunity and they used this leverage and their desperation to
solve the murder before Christmas (as Mayor Giuliani had directed police brass to do) to
somehow turn Bigweh from a low-level drug dealer to an accomplice to murder.
56. Over the course of three unrecorded interrogations over two days, Bigweh told an
evolving story that eventually ended with Bigweh confessing to participating in the crime and
falsely claiming that George Bell was the shooter.
57. Bigweh knew that Mr. Bell had sex with Bigweh’s girlfriend. They were not
friends.
58. Bigweh’s evolving description of the crime made clear from the start that he was
not a reliable witness.
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59. When Bigweh was first interrogated about the murder (after being arrested for
marijuana possession), he stated that he was not a participant in the crime. He claimed he had
been out partying with Bell and Gary Johnson on December 20th and 21st, and they later
approached him on the street about going with them to commit a robbery, which Bigweh refused
to do. Bigweh also named an unknown accomplice named “Zebedia” as a participant in the
robbery.
60. Bigweh was then driven around in a van for six hours with Detective Michael
Falciano, known as “the Falcon.”
61. After six hours with the Falcon, Bigweh implicated himself in the crime. In his
second statement, Bigweh admitted that he had participated in the crime along with Bell,
Johnson, someone named “Roti,” and a getaway driver named “Jason.” Zebedia had now
disappeared from the story. Bigweh also oddly claimed that the five men had driven to Bigweh’s
home so he could change from a green jacket to a navy blue one.
62. To this day, there is no independent evidence (i.e. evidence other than Bigweh’s
own statement) tying Bigweh to this crime.
63. Nonetheless, based on Bigweh’s statement alone, police turned their attention
away from a local robbery gang with an MO of sticking up check cashing stores, and towards
Mr. Bell—a 19-year-old stock boy at Old Navy with no criminal record.
NYPD Officers Beat and Threaten Mr. Bell Until He Confesses
64. Rather than seek a warrant for Mr. Bell’s arrest, which would have triggered his
right to counsel, NYPD officers set up a ruse to draw him out of his house.
65. Police instructed Bigweh to call Mr. Bell and Gary Johnson and falsely tell them
that Mendez Collier, Bell’s friend and Johnson’s cousin, had been arrested and needed help.
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66. The trick worked. Mr. Bell, who had been sick for several days and had just
taken NyQuil, left his house shortly after midnight on Christmas morning intending to go to the
precinct to help his friend in need.
67. Instead, Mr. Bell was immediately arrested, as was Mr. Johnson.
68. Even though the officers of the 115th precinct were investigating the murder, Mr.
Bell was taken to the 109th precinct to be interrogated.
69. When Mr. Bell’s mother arrived at the local 115th precinct in the middle of the
night after learning her son with limited mental capacity had been arrested, she was told that he
was not there and the police did not know where he was.
70. Mr. Bell was intentionally hidden from his family who was trying to find him.
Had they found him, Mr. Bell would have obtained counsel.
71. Instead, Mr. Bell, a 19-year-old with limited mental capacity and no experience
with the criminal justice system, suddenly found himself handcuffed to a chair at a Queens police
precinct in the middle of the night on Christmas.
72. Mr. Bell knew he had committed no crime and sat alone, confused, terrified, and
crying for his mother (who was out looking for him).
73. Defendants Pia and Sica did not document what happened to Mr. Bell between
midnight and 9:30 a.m. on December 25, 1996.
74. Rather, Defendants Pia and Sica wrote a mere a one-paragraph report stating that
they interrogated Mr. Bell for hours at the 109th Precinct and that, by 9:30 a.m. they had
obtained a three-page statement written out by Pia and signed by Mr. Bell.
75. Defendants Pia and Sica did not document what this “interrogation” consisted of.
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76. Defendants Pia and Sica did not report that they had manipulated, intimidated,
and beaten Mr. Bell in order to obtain that “confession.”
77. Upon arriving at the station, Mr. Bell sat for hours cuffed to a chair, given no
explanation for why he was there other than that he was “in big trouble” and no access to an
attorney or his family.
78. Sometime in the middle of the night, a sleep deprived and traumatized Mr. Bell
was brought to an interrogation room where he was met by Defendant Detective Sica and, later,
by Defendant Detective Pia.
79. Defendants Pia and Sica did not videotape or audiotape the interrogation.
80. Defendant Pia and Sica did not read Mr. Bell his Miranda rights. They simply
handed him a piece of paper (waiving his rights) and demanded that Mr. Bell sign it.
81. To the shock of Mr. Bell, Defendant Sica immediately accused him of murder.
82. Defendant Sica told Mr. Bell words to the effect of: “you know why you are here,
you killed a police officer.”
83. Mr. Bell had no idea what Sica was talking about .
84. Mr. Bell immediately denied any involvement in any murder.
85. Defendant Detective Pia arrived shortly thereafter and began screaming and
cursing at Mr. Bell.
86. Mr. Bell maintained that he did not know what the officers were talking about.
87. As Mr. Bell insisted he had no knowledge of any murder, Defendant Pia’s
interrogation turned violent.
88. Defendant Pia pressed a hockey stick up against Mr. Bell’s neck and threatened
him that he could “use [his] head as a hockey puck.”
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89. Every time Mr. Bell would deny that he had committed a homicide, Defendant
Pia hit Mr. Bell and knocked him to the floor.
90. Defendant Pia yanked Mr. Bell by his braids, tearing hair from his scalp and
unbraiding his tightly braided hair.
91. Defendant Pia demanded that Mr. Bell implicate himself or the violence would
continue.
92. And it did continue, over and over.
93. Defendant Pia told Mr. Bell that he would “put him in the fucking hospital”
unless Mr. Bell told him what he wanted to know.
94. Defendant Sica sat in the room, mere feet away from Mr. Bell as Defendant Pia
repeatedly beat Mr. Bell.
95. Defendant Sica did not intervene to stop Defendant Pia’s actions in any way.
96. Sica affirmed Defendant Pia’s violent tactics and encouraged Mr. Bell to
cooperate with Pia’s demands.
97. Mr. Bell, fearful for his life, asked Defendant Sica, “Isn’t this police brutality?”
98. Sica responded, “No, this is how we get things done.”
99. Both Defendants Pia and Sica screamed at Mr. Bell that he would never see his
family again unless he confessed.
100. Both Defendants Pia and Sica screamed at Mr. Bell that he would get the electric
chair unless he confessed.
101. Mr. Bell maintained his innocence and begged to call his mother. Mr. Bell also
asked for a lawyer. In response to that request, Defendant Pia responded that “cop killers don’t
get attorneys.”
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102. But Mr. Bell—sleep deprived, just 19 years old with a low IQ, terrified, and
willing to do anything to make the abuse stop—eventually broke down.
103. Mr. Bell began repeating facts that Detective Pia—who admitted at trial that he
had read Bigweh’s statement immediately before the interrogation—fed to him. Mr. Bell told Pia
“what he wanted to know” to make the abuse and threats stop.
104. Approximately nine-and-a-half hours after he was arrested, a delirious and
beaten-down Mr. Bell signed a statement he did not read, written entirely by Pia, falsely
implicating himself in a double homicide.3
105. Mr. Bell’s supposed confession did not lead law enforcement to a single piece of
information or evidence that police did not already know from other sources. It also contained
the false accusation, provided to Mr. Bell by his interrogators, that Mendez Collier, or “Carl” had
participated in the crime.
106. No murder weapon or any physical evidence tying Mr. Bell to the crime was ever
discovered.
107. Mr. Bell’s confession contradicted known facts about the case, such as the color
of the van that was used and the number of times the victims were shot.
108. Once the statement was signed, Mr. Bell was finally brought back to a holding
cell and allowed to go to sleep.
3
This was not the first time Detective Pia used violence as a means to extract a false confession. In 1995, just one
year before Mr. Bell was arrested, Pia elicited the confession of a man named Amaury Rosario in connection with a
different robbery and homicide. Mr. Rosario testified both at a suppression hearing and at trial that Pia kicked him,
handcuffed his left wrist to his right ankle, placed him in a headlock until he lost consciousness, punched him in the
groin and, after Mr. Rosario requested an attorney, placed a revolver in Mr. Rosario’s mouth and told him he had
two choices “to live or to die.” Amazingly, the prosecution did not call Detective Pia as a rebuttal witness at Mr.
Rosario’s trial despite the serious accusations Mr. Rosario made regarding how he had come to confess. Mr. Rosario
was acquitted of all charges. See Ind. No. 5644/95 (Sup. Ct. Queens Cnty).
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109. Not satisfied with having pummeled Mr. Bell into signing a written confession,
Defendants Pia and Sica sought a video-taped confession.
110. At approximately 12:22 p.m. (approximately 3 hours after his nine-hour through
the night interrogation), Mr. Bell was brought back to the interrogation room to give his
“confession” on video to Assistant District Attorney Peter Reese.
111. Defendants Pia and Sica remained in the room with Reese for the whole
recording.
112. The videotape of the “confession” shows that Mr. Bell’s braids had become
undone and disheveled—the result of Pia repeatedly knocking him to the ground and picking him
up by his braided hair until he implicated himself.
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113. Mr. Bell—fearing another beating from Pia if he didn’t comply—repeated his
false statement.
114. Mr. Bell can be heard on the videotape stating that he was “being framed.”
115. No one on the videotape is heard asking Mr. Bell any questions about his
statement that he was “being framed.”
116. Mr. Bell can be heard on the videotape asking Detective Pia if he “did good,”
after giving a narrative explaining his involvement.
117. At one point during the video, ADA Reese tells Bell that he is going to “show
[Bell] a picture of an individual” to see if Bell can identify that person, to which Bell matter-of-
factly responds, “I know, you showed me,” referencing the earlier interrogation.
118. Mr. Bell can be heard on the videotape asking ADA Reese if he can speak to him
alone.
119. ADA Reese never gave Mr. Bell the opportunity to speak with him alone.
120. All of these unusual comments and requests were ignored by the various law
enforcement officials present.
121. After securing Mr. Bell’s written and video “confessions,” Defendants Pia and
Sica realized they made a mistake. They had coerced Mr. Bell into implicating his friend,
Mendez Collier (known as “Carl”). After obtaining this statement from Mr. Bell, the police
concluded that “Carl” had “absolutely nothing” to do with the crime.
122. Defendant Sica then falsified a DD5 to try to “correct” the inaccurate information
that had been fed to Mr. Bell.
123. On December 25, 1996 at approximately, 3:15 p.m., Defendant Sica wrote that he
and Detective Pia had a “brief conversation with [Bell] . . . in the 109 Pct. Cell” during which
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Mr. Bell purportedly told Pia and Sica that he had wrongly accused his close friend Carl because
“John [Mark Bigweh] was close to ROTI [Bell’s exonerated co-Defendant, Rohan Bolt] and that
he [George] was afraid that he would be hurt in jail if he gave up John [Mark Bigweh].”
124. There was no signed document by Mr. Bell concerning this statement.
125. This conversation was a fabrication. Mr. Bell never said what the DD5 falsely
stated.
126. Defendants Pia and Sica provided both Mr. Bell’s false confession and this
fabricated DD5 to prosecutors and, in turn, the grand jury.
127. Mr. Bell’s “confession” is false on its face and this falsity was apparent at the
time. Mr. Bell was asleep in bed on the morning of the Murders, and there are at least 10
statements in Mr. Bell’s coerced statement that are impossible, that contradict known facts about
the murder, or that contradict the police’s own contrived theory of case.
128. Statement No. 1: Mr. Bell stated that the car used was “burgundy.” As the
QDAO acknowledged in open court in June 2021 when announcing Mr. Bell’s indictment would
be dismissed, four independent eyewitnesses at the crime scene identified the van as blue. As the
People conceded at Mr. Bell’s June 2021 dismissal hearing: “One of those eyewitnesses went so
far as to identify the perpetrators entering and fleeing in a blue Ford Aerostar van immediately
after the Murders, and in fact the sketch of this van was drawn by an NYPD sketch artist back in
1996.” The NYPD had in fact recovered a stolen blue Ford Aerostar van “less than an hour after
the crime approximately 20 minutes away” from the crime scene, after police received a report of
the van being stripped by three Black men in the vicinity of the crime. Shockingly, this
information was documented in DD5s but never disclosed to the defense.
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129. Statement No. 2: Mr. Bell stated none of the assailants wore gloves and that they
pushed the victims into the store, took the keys to the safe, and attempted to open it. Yet, none of
the fingerprints taken from the scene matched Mr. Bell’s or any of his co-Defendants’.
130. Statement No. 3: Mr. Bell stated that he fired three or four shots with no gloves
on and then went home and changed clothes. No gunshot residue was found on Mr. Bell’s
clothes recovered from his home.
131. Statement No. 4: Mr. Bell stated that his good friend, Mendez Collier, who was
also arrested for the crime and was in custody at the time Mr. Bell was arrested, was his co-
conspirator in the Murders. But police concluded later that same day that Collier had “absolutely
nothing” to do with the Murders and “voided” his arrest.
132. Statement No. 5: Though Mr. Bell had only drawn the police’s attention because
Bigweh had confessed and named him as the shooter, Mr. Bell did not name Bigweh as having
any involvement in the crime.
133. Statement No. 6: Mr. Bell stated that he shot Epstein “3 or 4 times” in the chest.
Epstein suffered a single, fatal gunshot wound.
134. Statement No. 7: Mr. Bell stated that all five perpetrators were carrying guns.
Gary Johnson stated there was only one gun, while Bigweh stated there were two. Not a single
other person ever stated that all five perpetrators carried guns. No gun was ever recovered.
135. Statement No. 8: Mr. Bell stated that he had known his co-defendant “Rowdy”
for “2 years or so” and describes him as “19 or 20” years old. The man the QDAO convicted as
“Roti,” Rohan Bolt, was 35 years old at the time of the crime. Despite having claimed that he
knew “Rowdy” for two years, Mr. Bell was unsure of how to pronounce his name, or even what
his name was, referring to him as “Rowdy, Rody, whatever his name is.”
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136. Statement No. 9: Mr. Bell was asked how many people were involved in the
crime and initially replied, “Four.” He was then pressed by ADA Reese with suggestive
questions indicating that the “correct” answer was five. Mr. Bell then changed his answer to
“Five.” Neither ADA Reese nor the two detectives in the room at the time followed up as to why
Mr. Bell was unable even to identify the number of accomplices with whom he purportedly
committed the brutal double murder.
137. Statement No. 10: Mr. Bell stated he hid the gun “by some leaves . . . over by
some rocks” on the “roof of the bomb building”—a well-known location a few blocks from the
crime scene. But a search of this building that included at least 35 officers, a canine search team,
and a sewer-dredging operation did not locate any gun, or any evidence related to the crime.
Moreover, police were on the scene minutes after the murder and a manhunt for the shooters was
underway immediately. It is unbelievable that Mr. Bell—a 19-year-old with limited mental
capacity and no criminal record—somehow outmaneuvered the whole NYPD response team on
the hunt for the shooter of a police officer, to stash the murder weapon (that was never found)
“by some leaves” or “over by some rocks” on the roof of a well-known neighborhood landmark.
138. These statements are simply illustrative examples, and a review of Mr. Bell’s
statement reveals numerous additional inconsistencies with the statements of co-defendants and
with the facts of the case—which were obvious to Defendants Pia and Sica at the time.
139. Moreover, Defendant Pia’s and Sica’s use of the “Reid technique”—a technique
that is no longer used by leading schools of interrogation due to its tendency to produce false
confessions—further undermines the accuracy of the confession.
140. In sum, Mr. Bell’s statement bore all indications of a textbook false confession,
and any so-called evidence elicited from Mr. Bell was entirely unreliable.
20
Police Obtain Another False Confession from Gary Johnson
141. At the same time Mr. Bell was being threatened and beaten, Defendants
Cardamone and Brooks were obtaining another false confession from Mr. Bell’s co-defendant,
Gary Johnson.
142. Like Defendants Pia and Sica, Defendants Cardamone and Brooks did not record
anything that occurred during the twelve hours that they interrogated Mr. Johnson.
143. Johnson’s confession was also facially unbelievable in numerous ways.
144. Johnson stated that after an evening of hard partying the night before, he passed
out, and that he “was still drunk” the next morning and “[didn’t] know what time it was when I
woke up.”
145. Johnson stated that he had driven to the check cashing store with someone named
“Jason” and “two of Jason’s friends that I didn’t know.” He added that he didn’t really know
Jason either.
146. Johnson also claimed (contrary to Bigweh and Mr. Bell) that Mr. Bell was already
at the check cashing store when they arrived and the he and Mr. Bell did not speak that morning.
In other words, Johnson claimed that he committed this crime with three people he did not know
and Mr. Bell—who he hadn’t spoken to prior to arriving. When pressed on this striking claim,
Johnson stated that he did not even remember the crime but had “seen it on the news” but he
“didn’t think [he] was involved in it because [he ] woke up and it was just another day for [him].
147. Johnson also could not decide if he had spoken to Mr. Bell after the Murders, first
claiming that when he “woke up in the morning [he] called [Mr. Bell]. We were talking and I
was asking him what are you gonna do today. He said he was sick or something.” Johnson then
changed his mind and said he had only spoken to Mr. Bell’s sister and he “never really got a
21
chance to talk to Bell” in the four days since they had apparently committed a double homicide
together.
148. Johnson screamed as he was being interrogated. Johnson’s confession was also
obtained through police coercion.
149. Defendants Cardamone and Brooks knew this unbelievable confession was false.
150. Defendants Cardamone and Brooks provided this false confession, implicating
Mr. Bell, to prosecutors.
151. Upon information and belief, Defendants Cardamone and Brooks never informed
prosecutors that Johnson’s confession implicating Mr. Bell was false.
152. Upon information and belief, Defendants Cardamone and Brooks never informed
prosecutors that this confession was obtained through coercion.
153. Because Defendants Cardamone and Brooks concealed that they had coerced
Johnson’s confession, neither the prosecutors nor the jury ever learned that police had coerced a
false confession from another co-defendant at the same time that they had coerced Mr. Bell’s.
154. Mr. Bell’s defense counsel was never informed that Johnson’s confession was
false and obtained through coercion.
Police Admit to Obtaining Another False Confession from Jason Ligon
155. Perhaps most tellingly, yet another false confession—which police have since
admitted was false—was obtained in the same case and provided detailed facts extremely similar
to Mr. Bell’s confession.
156. Bigweh had identified someone named “Jason” as the getaway driver, a detail that
Mr. Bell and Gary Johnson both repeated (having been fed the statement by the police).
22
157. On May 30, 1997, the police arrested a man named Jason Ligon. After five hours
in police custody, Defendants Bubelnik and Bovino secured Ligon’s confession to his purported
involvement in the Murders.
158. Defendants Bubelnik and Bovino worked in close collaboration with Detectives
Sica and Pia, and fed the same facts to Jason Ligon that Pia and Sica fed to Mr. Bell.
159. Defendants Bubelnik and Bovino were intimately familiar with both the true facts
and coerced falsehoods about the Astoria Boulevard Murders. Defendant Bubelnik was one of
the officers present at Bigweh’s confession.
160. Defendants’ Bubelnik and Bovino orchestrated and supervised Bell’s and Bolt’s
lineups on December 26, 1996, and the fingerprinting of Bell, Johnson, Bolt, and Bigweh.
161. They had all of the knowledge of the case to ensure that Ligon’s confession would
line up with Mr. Bell’s.
162. Like Mr. Bell, Ligon confessed that he (Ligon) was the driver, that Bell was the
shooter, and that Bolt (his name now having evolved from “Roti” to “Rohan”) put the robbery
plan together.
163. In fact, Ligon went into even more extensive detail than Mr. Bell about the plan
for the robbery, what was discussed among the men committing the crime, and how the plan was
executed.
164. Though Ligon’s video and written confession mirrored Mr. Bell’s (except it was
more detailed), Ligon was not even in New York at the time of the Murders.
165. Ligon’s counsel hired a private investigator who determined that Mr. Ligon was
in Washington, D.C. at the time of the Murders. See Bell, 71 Misc. 3d at 650.
23
166. Ligon’s private investigator provided this alibi to District Attorney Investigators
Teddy Wess and Stanley Carpenter, who confirmed its accuracy on their own trip to D.C.
167. Wess and Carpenter determined that the evidence established that Ligon was not
involved in the Astoria Boulevard Murders.
168. Upon information and belief, Ligon had no motive to falsely implicate himself in
a crime he did not commit.
169. Accordingly, upon information and belief, Ligon’s (false) confession was
obtained through police coercion.
170. Ligon has since told investigators that police officers provided him with alcohol
during the interrogation.
171. Wess and Carpenter stated to Ligon’s private investigator that, notwithstanding
Ligon’s innocence, the charges against him would not be dismissed until Mr. Bell, Johnson, and
Bolt were tried.
172. Wess and Carpenter further told Ligon’s private investigator that they were aware
that Ligon was facing felony drug charges in a separate case, and that the time he spent
incarcerated as a result of his arrest in connection with the Astoria Boulevard Murders (crimes
the QDAO knew he did not commit) would be credited against the time he would ultimately
serve on the drug charges.
173. In other words, the QDAO contemporaneously acknowledged that (1) they knew
Ligon was innocent and had given a false confession; but (2) would nonetheless not dismiss the
case against Ligon until after Bell, Bolt, and Johnson were tried.
24
174. The clear implication being that Wess and Carpenter, in conjunction with
Defendants Bubelnik and Bovino, did not want to admit that Ligon was innocent and the police
had coerced a false confession.
175. And this is exactly what happened. Even though Defendants Bubelnik and Bovino
and the DA investigators knew of Ligon’s’ alibi months before Bell’s trial, charges against Ligon
were not dropped until Bell, Johnson, and Bolt had all been convicted.
176. Bell’s counsel was never informed by the QDAO that Ligon’s confession was
false.
177. Defendants Bubelnik and Bovino knew Ligon’s confession implicating Mr. Bell
was false, but nonetheless provided it to prosecutors.
178. Mr. Bell’s defense counsel was never informed that Ligon was innocent, that his
confession was false, or that police officers coerced his confession.
179. This proof of Mr. Ligon’s innocence was Brady material that was not produced to
Mr. Bell’s counsel.
180. On information and belief Defendants Bubelnik and Bovino never informed
prosecutors that Ligon’s confession was obtained through coercion. Alternately, if prosecutors
knew that Ligon’s confession was obtained through coercion, they wrongfully withheld this
Brady material from Mr. Bell’s defense team.
181. Moreover, as the QDAO acknowledged in June 2021, “Det. Bubelnik also had a
pending lawsuit against her at the time of trial which stemmed from a previous case in which she
was accused of coercing a false confession from the defendant in that case.”
182. Defendant Bovino was also a defendant in that “pending lawsuit,” and was also
accused of participating in extracting a false confession.
25
183. That lawsuit was ultimately settled.
184. That Defendants Bubelnik and Bovino were accused of coercing false confession
from a criminal defendant was Brady material.
185. Prosecutors never disclosed to Mr. Bell’s defense team that Defendants Bubelnik
and Bovino were accused of coercing false confession from a criminal defendant.
186. On information and belief, Defendants Bubelnik and Bovino did not inform the
QDAO about this prior lawsuit. Alternately, if prosecutors knew about this prior lawsuit, they
wrongfully withheld this information from Mr. Bell’s defense team.
187. Because these Defendants concealed Ligon’s coerced confession, the jury never
learned that the police had extracted a false confession from another co-defendant that was very
similar to Mr. Bell’s false confession.
188. Because these Defendants concealed Ligon’s false confession, the jury never
learned that Mr. Bell’s “admission” in his coerced confession that Jason was the driver was
indisputably false.
A Media Frenzy Follows Mr. Bell’s Arrest
189. Mr. Bell was convicted in the press before he ever entered a courtroom.
190. Mayor Giuliani appeared at a press conference on Christmas Day with high-level
police brass to praise the detectives who led the investigation for cracking the case.
191. Mayor Giuliani kissed Detective Falciano at the press conference as he thanked
him cracking the case by eliciting Bigweh’s confession.
192. The Daily News ran a front-page story with a picture of Mr. Bell in tears and
labeled him the “CRYBABY COP KILLER”—crybaby because he was brought to tears by the
terror of being falsely accused of a double murder when he was at the police station.
26
193. The Daily News would later run a full-page editorial advocating that Mr. Bell be
put to death.
194. The police orchestrated a “perp walk” of Mr. Bell and the New York Post ran a
front-page story with a picture zoomed in all the way on Mr. Bell’s face during the perp walk
with the headline “THE FACE OF EVIL.”
The Defense Seeks and is Denied Highly Probative Brady Material
195. From the very start of Mr. Bell’s criminal proceedings, his attorneys consistently
sought Brady material regarding police investigations into other suspects.
196. On March 25, 1997, Bell’s lawyers served a “demand to produce” which
specifically requested (1) “any evidence or information, and any reports or documents, including
but not limited to . . . police reports, memoranda, [or] witness statements . . . indicating that any
person, other than the accused and the co-defendants in the instant indictment, is a suspected
perpetrator of any of the crimes charged”; (2) “whether any prosecution witness has ever
received any treatment, therapy or psychiatric care”; (3) “written reports or documents . . .
concerning any mental examination of a prosecution witness that was recommended or
facilitated by a public servant, including psychological testing or counseling”; (4) “any informant
operating in cooperation with law enforcement officials”; and (5) “any evidence or information
which indicate that any custodial statement by the accused or any co-defendant [the requests
define “co-defendant” to mean “ROHAN BOLT, GARY JOHNSON, AND JOHN MARK
BIGWEH”] is involuntary, inaccurate, incomplete, the product of threats or inducement, or
otherwise unreliable.”
197. When making this request, Mr. Bell’s defense team also cited to the news reports
prior to Mr. Bell’s arrest (described above) about the police’s investigation of check cashing
store robberies with the same M.O.

27
198. On April 7, 1997, ADA Neal Morse responded under oath that “The Queens DA
are not in possession of, or aware of, any Brady material. The Queens DA acknowledge its
continuing obligation to provide Brady material should the same become known to the Queens
DA.”
199. Johnson’s and Bolt’s counsel made materially identical requests and received the
identical blanket denials in sworn affirmations from ADA Morse and ADA Ira Dorfman.
200. Proof that the NYPD had strong evidence of Speedstick’s involvement reemerged
on May 9, 1997, almost two years before Mr. Bell’s trial would ultimately begin, when two off-
duty police officers were attacked while delivering payroll to a business in Flushing, Queens.
201. Aaron Boone and Robert Majors were arrested in connection with this attack.
202. In reporting on the arrests, the Daily News stated that “Boone and Majors are
suspects in other payroll heists in Queens, including a December ambush that killed a check-
cashing firm owner and off-duty Police Officer Charles Davis.”
203. The Daily News report was based on information provided to the reporter by the
NYPD.
204. Defendant Paul Heider signed a felony complaint against Boone and Majors on
May 10, 1997.
205. This reporting led to another round of requests for Brady material in the Bell,
Bolt, and Johnson cases regarding other potential suspects.
206. In October 1997, when still no Brady material had been produced, Bell’s counsel
filed a motion to compel the Brady material sought in his prior request and cited to the May 1997
Daily News article clearly reflecting that the perpetrators of the failed armored car robbery gang
were suspects in the crime that Mr. Bell was accused of.
28
207. Bell’s counsel also expanded his request to seek information regarding the newly-
arrested Jason Ligon.
208. The QDAO responded in a sworn affirmation signed by ADA Gary Fidel by
continuing to falsely deny the existence of any Brady material and specifically stating “[T]here is
no evidence pointing to any uncharged person as being involved in the crimes charged.”
209. Relying on ADA Fidel’s false sworn statement, the trial judge denied Mr. Bell’s
motion to compel evidence linking the armored car robbery to the Astoria Boulevard Murders,
but with the admonition that “The Queens DA are reminded of their continuing duty to make
Brady material available to the defense if and when such evidence comes into their possession,
knowledge and control.”
210. Neither the defense team nor the trial judge, however, could force the prosecution
to turn over evidence that they continued to (falsely) claim did not exist.
211. On January 19, 1999, Bell’s counsel followed up again regarding Jason Ligon.
Mr. Bell’s counsel wrote to the ADA and specifically requested any information that Jason
Ligon—who had by then been in jail for two-and-a-half years—was not actually involved in the
Murders.
212. Two days later, on January 21, 1999, ADA Linda Cantoni responded with the
QDAO’s continuing refrain that: “[T]he Queens DA are not in possession of any material or
information regarding Jason Ligon, whom the Queens DA are prosecuting as one of defendant’s
accomplices, that would constitute Brady or Giglio material as to defendant George Davis Bell,”
and again promising “should any Brady or Giglio material come into the Queens DA’s
possession in the future, the Queens DA will disclose it at the appropriate time.”
213. This statement, like QDAO’s other denial, was false.
29
214. In a post-trial affirmation submitted by Queens ADA Cantoni on March 29, 2005,
Cantoni recounts that Greg Lasak, lead counsel on the case during all pre-trial discovery and the
Executive ADA responsible for the homicide investigations, informed her that “sometime prior
to January 1999, Ligon recanted” his confession “and stated that he was not present at the
robbery and murder.”
215. Bell’s defense was never informed prior to trial that Ligon had recanted his
confession, as detailed above.
216. Even having been denied Brady material, Mr. Bell’s counsel tried to call
Defendant NYPD Detective Paul Heider at trial knowing that he had investigated the Flushing
robbery.
217. Queens ADA Charles Testagrossa—lead trial counsel and the Chief of the Major
Crimes Bureau, represented to the Judge that there was “no connection” between the crimes
Heider was investigating and the crimes for which Mr. Bell was charged. Defendant Heider was
precluded from testifying at Mr. Bell’s trial.
218. Likewise, when Bell’s counsel asked Defendant William Nevins, the
Commanding Officer of the Queens Homicide Squad whether “[t]here was also a robbery of a
check cashing place that occurred in May of 1997,” ADA Testagrossa objected, and the Court
(on the basis of Testagrossa’s ongoing false statement that there was no connection between the
crimes) sustained the objection.
219. When Mr. Bell’s attorney asked if “the people that were arrested were Aaron
Boone and Robert [Majors],” ADA Testagrossa again successfully objected. Id.
220. When Mr. Bell’s attorney began a line of questioning regarding why guns
recovered during the investigation of the armored car robbery in 1997 were tested against
30
ballistics evidence at the check cashing store, ADAs Testagrossa and Leventhal, in open court,
disclaimed any knowledge of why these tests were conducted and accused Bell’s defense team of
embarking on a “fishing expedition.”
221. ADA Testagrossa went even further, calling the two cases “completely different”
and pronouncing that they had “no connection,” other than the one the defense had been trying,
desperately, to contrive.
222. The trial judge denied the defense further discovery on the basis of these (now
proven to be blatantly false) representations.
223. Similarly, when the defense tried to call the NYPD’s fingerprint expert to the
stand to establish that he had compared Speedstick member Jamal Clark’s prints to those found
at the murder scene, ADA Leventhal brashly stated that “there is no issue with respect to the
fingerprints within the premises, and any other fingerprints that were taken somewhere else. It’s
collateral and irrelevant.”
224. Once again, the prosecution’s false representations to the Court denied the
defense the opportunity to present evidence reflecting the NYPD’s investigation into Speedstick
as alternative (and ultimately the correct) suspects.
225. As part of a reinvestigation of Mr. Bell’s conviction, the QDAO Conviction
Integrity Unit produced the handwritten notes of ADA Charles Testagrossa.
226. These notes, taken in 1997 (over a year before Mr. Bell’s trial) in a folder labeled
“Speedstick” reveal that Defendant Heider and Testagrossa discussed Defendant Heider’s
Speedstick investigation.
31
227. The notes state that Testagrossa was informed that Heider “[b]elieve[d] Jamal was
driver in Davis homicide [the homicide for which Mr. Bell was convicted]”; “Jason was Jamal”;
and “Speed Stick Bosses: Twin Boones. Bernard Johnson. Jamal Clark ‘Jason.’”
228. Upon information and belief, when Defendant Heider was called to testify at Mr.
Bell’s trial in 1999, ADA Testagrossa consulted with Defendant Heider as to the relationship
between Mr. Bell’s case and Speedstick.
229. Upon information and belief, Defendant Heider falsely told ADAs Testagrossa
and Leventhal that there was no connection between the cases
230. In the alternative, upon information and belief, Defendant Heider truthfully told
Testagrossa and/or Leventhal that there was a connection between the cases.
231. Yet, notwithstanding Defendant Heider’s revelation about the connection between
Mr. Bell’s case and Speedstick, Testagrossa and Leventhal lied to the Court.
232. In other words, upon information and belief, either Defendant Heider lied to
ADAs Testagrossa and Leventhal or the ADAs lied to the Court.
233. The ADA’s misrepresentations to the Court claiming that there was no connection
between the cases was the result of an effort by Defendant Heider to conceal the truth.
234. Alternately, upon information and belief, ADA Testagrossa remembered his 1997
conversation with Defendant Heider, and made these false representations to the Court even
though he was personally aware that Jamal Clark, a known Speedstick member, had admitted to
participating in the Astoria Boulevard Murders.
Mr. Bell is Convicted on the Basis of His False Confession
235. Mr. Bell was convicted of murder in the first degree on June 11, 1999.
236. Beyond Mr. Bell’s false confession, the rest of the case against him was weak to
non-existent.
32
237. There was no physical evidence whatsoever tying Mr. Bell to the crime.
238. Bigweh, who was the only reason Mr. Bell had (erroneously) become a suspect,
did not testify.
239. The only additional evidence the DA offered was testimony from one eyewitness
and one jailhouse informant.
240. The eyewitness, Gregory Turnbull, saw the suspects flee from approximately 180
feet away before sunrise and, even after 14 hours of police interrogation, refused to provide a
description to a sketch artist because he thought any sketch he would provide “could have been
anybody” and he “didn’t want the wrong person to be picked up.”
241. Turnbull’s refusal to provide a sketch was not noted in the DD5 provided to the
defense regarding his interrogation.
242. By the time of Mr. Bell’s trial, upon information and belief, either the NYPD or
the QDAO had shown Turnbull photos of Mr. Bell.
243. The jailhouse informant, Reginald Gousse, was equally unreliable.
244. Gousse was facing charges related to two armed robberies.
245. Gousse’s testimony about the crime simply restated information that was already
available through public news sources, including repeating errors that been publicly reported,
such as that Epstein was shot multiple times, when he died of a single gunshot wound.
246. Gousse also received what the New York Times labelled the highly “unusual” step
from the QDAO , when they did an “extraordinary favor” for him of preventing his deportation
to Haiti by arguing for Gousse’s “immediate release” so that immigration authorities could not
detain him upon release from custody.
247. Mr. Bell never spoke to Gousse about anything related to Mr. Bell’s case.
33
248. Gousse later went on to carjack and tragically murder a father of three.
249. Even with his life at stake after his conviction, Mr. Bell continued to maintain his
innocence.
250. Before sentencing, the DA offered to allow Mr. Bell to plead guilty and avoid the
death penalty.
251. Mr. Bell rejected the DA’s offer because he would not plead guilty to a heinous
crime he did not commit.
252. The case proceeded to the capital phase, and Mr. Bell is alive today only by
mercy of the jury, which declined to impose the death penalty.
253. Mr. Bell was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on July
27, 1999.
Mountains of Unproduced Brady Material is Revealed
254. In the years following Mr. Bell’s conviction, significant Brady material has
emerged that was never turned over to the defense.
255. The most significant of these revelations is DD5 288. This DD5 documents that
by May 1997 at the latest, police were aware that a member of the Speedstick gang had
confessed to the Astoria Boulevard Murders for which George was convicted.
256. DD5 288, dated May 16, 1997, and prepared by Defendant Heider (the very
witness Mr. Bell had attempted to call at trial to explore the connection between the May 1997
robbery and the murder with which he was charged), memorializes an interview of “Witness #1”
who provides a detailed account of the activities “of a Robbery Ring that was run by the Twins
Aaron and Ammon Boone.”
34
257. By way of background, DD5 288 provides a detailed description of the robbery
gang’s operations and provides summaries of at least seven armed robberies carried out by the
group in 1996 and 1997.
258. Witness #1 identified Jamal Clark as a member of the robbery gang and stated
that he had personally participated in several of the robberies with Clark and one or both of the
Boone Twins.
259. Several of these robberies carried out by Speedstick involved victims being shot,
stabbed, or sliced.
260. DD5 288 then goes on to directly implicate this robbery gang in the murder for
which George Bell was convicted. The DD5 provides:
[Witness #1] stated that he was told by Jamal Clark that the group
robbed a check cashing store on Astoria Blvd. This job was set up
by the [Boone] Twins and that Jamal Clark was outside and that
something went bad. They did not get any money. Witness #1 stated
that this was a phone call and that Jamal Clark was down south at
the club with the Twins after this robbery. Jamal told him that he
was upset because he was doing a lot of jobs also in NY and down
south and that he was not getting a fair share of the money. He was
concerned that if he left that the Twins may kill him because they
felt that he knew to[o] much and could tell the police. Jamal told
him he was leaving and he did.
*Witness #1 stated that Jamal Clark had a code name for all the
robberies that he participated in with the group. The name is
JASON.
(emphasis added).
261. DD5 288 also reports that Clark’s fear of being murdered was well-founded.
262. Witness #1 stated that another gang member, Kevin McKinney, told him that
Aaron Boone later shot Clark in the back of the head.
35
263. Subsequent events make clear that the QDAO viewed Witness #1 to be a credible
witness.
264. In January 1999, months before Mr. Bell’s trial, the QDAO indicted Aaron Boone
for Clark’s murder—consistent with the information supplied by Witness #1 in DD5 288.
265. Additional wrongfully withheld DD5s further corroborate DD5 288.
266. In DD5 291, Witness #1 provides additional details regarding members of the
Speedstick robbery gang, including their nicknames, addresses, appearance, and more—further
bolstering his credibility and specifically identifying the likely murderers.
267. In DD5 548, another member of the robbery ring identified as “Witness #2” told
detectives in an interview that took place at the Queens DA’s Office that Jamal Clark had told
him “I’[]m tired of this shit.” When Witness #2 asked Clark what he was tired of, Clark
responded “that shit in Corona”—an apparent reference to the Astoria Boulevard Murders for
which Mr. Bell was convicted.
268. It is clear that Jamal Clark and the Boone twins—not George Bell—murdered
Epstein and Davis and that police and QDAO knew it in 1997, but chose to withhold this
information from George’s defense team despite multiple specific requests.
269. As Justice Zayas unequivocally found: “Under no circumstances could the
prosecutors in these cases have reasonably believed that this information—which suggested that
another group of perpetrators, with a history of armed robberies targeting large amounts of cash,
was responsible for the Murders of Epstein and Davis and thus contradicted the People’s theory
of the case—was not favorable to Bell, Bolt, and Johnson and did not have to be disclosed.” Bell,
71 Misc. 3d at 662.
36
270. Making matters worse, the trial counsel for Robert Majors (one of the alleged
Speedstick members charged with another neighborhood robbery along with Aaron Boone) was
provided with a redacted, two-page copy of DD5 288 and a redacted copy of DD5 291 in the
year 2000, one year after Mr. Bell’s conviction.
271. The copies that Majors’s counsel received incredibly had all of the information
that would have exonerated Mr. Bell either redacted or, in the case of DD5 288, with the third
page containing information exculpating Mr. Bell missing in its entirety.
272. In other words, the QDAO was well aware of Speedstick’s involvement in Astoria
Boulevard Murders by 1997 (per ADA Testagrossa’s notes) and was in possession of these
specific DD5s by at least 2000, and chose to suppress this clear evidence that Mr. Bell was
innocent.4
273. The information withheld from Mr. Bell’s defense team was far from limited to
these DD5s. Following the revelations of DD5 288, Mr. Bell’s post-conviction attorneys at
Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz approached the QDAO’s newly-formed Conviction Integrity Unit
(“CIU”).
274. CIU did a thorough re-investigation of Mr. Bell’s conviction, which identified
other exculpatory information that was in the possession of law enforcement, but had never been
disclosed to Mr. Bell.
275. All of this newly-discovered information either points to Speedstick gang as the
culprits or evidences that Mr. Bell’s confession was unreliable.
4
It is worth noting DD5 288 was uncovered only through the most fortuitous of circumstances. Robert Majors has
maintained his innocence and, in connection with his challenges to his convictions, these DD5s were produced to his
lawyer. Majors’s lawyer happened to have been familiar with Mr. Bell’s case, recognized the significance of these
productions, and contacted Mr. Bell’s counsel. But for the awareness and tenacity of Majors, his lawyers, and some
sheer luck, George Bell would still be serving a life sentence for a crime he did not commit. Majors’s conviction
was vacated in 2020 after a state court found that the QDAO withheld Brady material in his case.
37
276. The below documents were never produced to Mr. Bell before the CIU
reinvestigation.
x DD5 548 (discussed above).
x The NYPD “all points bulletin” from before Mr. Bell’s arrest which stated that the
robbery ring were the lead suspects in the Murders.
x Additional police reports reflecting similar modus operandi between the suspects
in the Astoria Boulevard Murders and other recent robberies in Queens, including (1) the
time of day the crime occurred; (2) the number of perpetrators; and (3) the manner in
which the perpetrators forced entry into the business.
x A DD5 reflecting that just days before the murder, three or four men appeared to
be casing Epstein’s check cashing store and that one of them had a scar on the left side of
his face near his lip in a horseshoe shape and a thin mustache. A photo of Jamal Clark
from the time of the Murders reveals a scar and mustache matching this description.
x A DD5, authored by Defendant Brooks, memorializing an interview with Jamal

Clark’s girlfriend at the time of the Astoria Boulevard Murders that further corroborates
Witness #1’s claim that Clark was closely associated with the Boone twins and that he
went to the Boones’ club in South Carolina with them shortly after the murder. Upon
information and belief, Defendant Brooks did not provide this information to the QDAO
or, in the alternative, this information was not provided by prosecutors to the defense.
x Additional evidence corroborating that Boone murdered Jamal Clark, adding

more credence to the statements of Witness # 1 regarding Clark and Boone’s involvement
in the Murders for which Mr. Bell was convicted.
x A DD5 memorializing the interview with a victim of the May 9, 1997 robbery of
a Flushing, Queens business (see Paragraphs 199-201 above), stating that “Green Van
which was occupied by a M/B wearing a Green Army Jacket and sitting in drivers side of
Van.” This description matches the description from a witness to the Murders who
testified at Mr. Bell’s trial that the shooter was wearing a “green army jacket.”
x A DD5 reflecting that Bigweh told Witness #2 that he actually was not involved
in the robbery and Murders (when his supposed involvement was the only thing leading
the police to Mr. Bell in the first place).
38
x Records reflecting that Bigweh had attempted suicide in custody and then needed
mental health evaluations.5 The QDAO had “obtained medical records related to the
suicide attempt, which included information that Bigweh had a history of experiencing
‘AH [auditory hallucinations]’ of his dead mother at stressful times like his birthday or
hers or the anniversary of her death. The voice tells him to ‘go home.’” Bell, 71 Misc. 3d
at 650. “None of these records, which were in the District Attorney’s file related to this
case, were disclosed to the attorneys representing Bell, Bolt, and Johnson, despite
specific requests for information of this sort having been made.” Id. These records
included handwritten notes with the name “Greg Lasak”—the lead prosecutor in Mr.
Bell’s case up until trial and a member of the QDAO capital case committee—at the top
of the page recording that Bigweh had been sent for a psychiatric evaluation.
x Bigweh’s cooperation agreement that was terminated shortly before Mr. Bell’s
trial, even though Mr. Bell’s defense team had specifically requested any such
cooperation agreements.
x A DD5 describing an interview with witness Altagralia Durna, who described the
getaway car as a light blue Aerostar van with white stripes and who identified the stolen
blue Ford Aerostar van recovered near the crime scene as the likely getaway vehicle.
Incredibly, the QDAO did not disclose to Mr. Bell’s defense team that this witness
existed until two-and-a-half months after his trial began and the day after the witness had
left the country, and even when disclosing her still did not disclose the DD5 reflecting the
interview in which she identified the blue van recovered by the police as the getaway
vehicle. Mr. Bell stated that the van was burgundy in his false confession.
x During the same undisclosed interview, Ms. Duran also described the assailant as
“light skinned male black or Hispanic.” None of Mr. Bell, Johnson, or Bolt meet that
description;.
x Interviews with an additional five eyewitnesses identifying the color of the van as
either blue or green. Two of the witnesses also identified the van as having either North
Carolina or South Carolina plates—further tying the crime to the Boone twins, who
owned a night club in South Carolina.
x The DD5 from an interview with a man named Dennis Knight days before Mr.
Bell was arrested in which Knight stated that he had “no specific information” of the
crime but had a hunch that someone that he knew named Devon might have been
involved in the Murders and that Devon “usually drives a red or burgundy Plymouth
Voyager van” (i.e., the source of the “burgundy” van information—corroborated by none
5
The subpoena seeking Bigweh’s medical records was signed by ADA Neal Morse—one of the same ADAs who
swore under oath on multiple occasions that “the Queens DA are not in possession of, or aware of, any Brady
material.”
39
of the eight eyewitnesses who gave statements to the police—fed to Mr. Bell by the
police).
277. The CIU investigation also uncovered a DD5 63, dated March 28, 1997, reflecting
that just three weeks after Jamal Clark’s murder, Queens Homicide Detectives supplied
information regarding Clark’s murder to Defendants Pia and Sica.
278. This coordination between the detectives investigating Clark’s murder and
Defendants Pia and Sica—who were investigating the murder with which Mr. Bell was
charged—further demonstrate that these cases were always related and the investigating
detectives were well-aware of the alternative suspects.
279. The information in this DD5 and its clear implication that the police knew about
the relationship between Speedstick and the murder for which Mr. Bell was convicted was also
confirmed during CIU’s reinvestigation.
280. One of the lead detectives in the Speedstick investigation, Detective Stacey
Calantjis, confirmed he and the other Speedstick investigators shared everything they uncovered
about Speedstick with Defendants Pia and Sica.
281. Calantjis also confirmed that he provided all of the information he had to
Defendant Pia and Sica’s boss, Defendant Nevins, but that Nevins did not pursue any of the leads
regarding Speedstick’s involvement.
282. Defendants Nevins, Pia, and Sica did not provide this information to the QDAO
or, in the alternative, prosecutors wrongfully withheld this information from Mr. Bell’s defense
team.
283. The CIU reinvestigation also revealed that Defendant Bubelnik fabricated
evidence against Mr. Bell.
40
284. In May 1997, Detective Bubelnik drafted a DD5 575 regarding an interview with
Rodney Boone (no relation to the Boone twins). Detective Bubelnik stated that Mr. Boone (1)
informed her that she “had the right people”; (2) told her that the “word on the street” was that
Rohan Bolt supplied the guns and got them in Brooklyn; and (3) identified Jason Ligon as a
participant in the crime.
285. Rodney Boone was interviewed as part of the CIU investigation and vigorously
denied making any of these statements. Mr. Boone told investigators that he never told the police
they had the right people, never told police anything about Bolt who Boone only knew of
because he owned a local restaurant, and never identified Ligon, who he had no basis to believe
had any involvement in the crime.
286. Instead, Mr. Rodney Boone told investigators that Defendant Bubelnik said to
him “we have the right people,” a statement which Mr. Boone did not confirm or deny since he
had no knowledge of who committed in the crime.
287. Defendant Bubelnik fabricated this DD5 claiming that Mr. Boone told her that
they “have the right people.”
288. In addition to the voluminous documents discussed above reflecting Mr. Bell’s
innocence, the CIU also produced the handwritten notes of ADA Charles Testagrossa.
289. These notes taken before Mr. Bell’s trial in a folder labeled “Speedstick” reveal
that as early as 1997 Testagrossa “[b]elieve[d] Jamal was driver in Davis homicide”; “Jason was
Jamal”; and knew of “Speed Stick Bosses: Twin Boones. Bernard Johnson. Jamal Clark ‘Jason.’”
290. As Justice Zayas put it, “[i]t is . . . mindboggling that Testagrossa asserted in open
court that there was no link between the Boone-led Speedstick gang and this case.” Bell, 71
Misc. 3d at 662.
41
291. Even if Testagrossa had forgotten about his conversations with Defendant Heider
by the time Mr. Bell went to trial in 1999, they were readily available to him throughout the trial.
Rather than consult his own notes of the relationship between the cases when Mr. Bell’s defense
team sought to call Heider to testify, Testagrossa, in consultation with Defendant Heider, made
blanket assertions that there was no connection between the cases and impugned the defendants’
counsel for implying otherwise.
292. Testagrossa not only failed to consult his notes, he doubled down on the supposed
lack of any other suspects in his closing argument at Mr. Bell’s trial, stating that Mr. Bell’s
defense lawyers were “despicable” for suggesting that others had committed the crime.
293. The truth has now come out, and the true “despicable” actors in this saga were the
NYPD and the QDAO.
294. ADA Brad Leventhal likewise used this withheld Brady information to denigrate
Mr. Bell’s defense team.
295. As set forth above, during Mr. Bell’s trial, his defense team sought a subpoena to
review ballistics analysis comparing the evidence from the May 1997 armed car robbery to that
of the Astoria Boulevard Murders.
296. Prosecutors claimed to have no knowledge of why this ballistics comparison was
run, and Leventhal shamelessly argued that Mr. Bell’s lawyers were on a desperate “fishing
expedition.”
297. Lastly, it also was not until after Mr. Bell’s conviction that the NYPD admitted
that Jason Ligon’s confession was false.
298. As set forth above, there is clear evidence that Defendants Bubelnik and Bovino
had knowledge of Ligon’s solid alibi (that he was in Washington, D.C. at the time the Astoria
42
Boulevard Murders were committed) before Mr. Bell’s trial even began, and knew his confession
was false, yet charges against Ligon deliberately were not dropped until Mr. Bell and his two co-
defendants (Johnson and Bolt) had been convicted.
299. Moreover, additional documents only recently disclosed reflect that police were
investigating Clark as early as March 1997, when Defendants Bovino and Bubelnik did a
“complete workup” of Jamal Clark and obtained numerous photographs of Clark. Defendant Sica
then placed a picture of Clark in a photo array with pictures of Mr. Bell, Bolt, Johnson, and
Bigweh to at least one witness.
300. Even though Defendants Pia, Sica, Bubelnik, and Bovino had had been actively
investigating Jamal Clark, upon information and belief, once law enforcement learned Jason
Ligon was in Washington, D.C. at the time of the murder, the NYPD made no further attempt to
locate “Jason”—the supposed fifth participant in the murder of an off-duty police officer—
because they knew that the real “Jason,” i.e., Jamal Clark, was deceased. This underscores that
the police knew that the person they had previously identified as “Jason” was Jamal Clark, who
was deceased.
301. In other words, Defendants Pia, Sica, Bubelnik, and Bovino, in addition to
Defendant Heider, not only knew and withheld that Jason Ligon was innocent, but also withheld
from Mr. Bell their apparent knowledge that they had identified Jamal Clark, a deceased member
of the Speedstick gang, as a participant in the murder. Clark’s inclusion would have
unquestionably warranted further investigation into Speedstick’s involvement in the crime.
302. These facts create the inescapable inference that Defendants Pia, Sica, Bubelnik,
Bovino, and Heider stopped their own investigation into Clark once he was deceased in order to
43
avoid implicating Speedstick and establishing that Messrs. Bell, Bolt, and Johnson were
innocent.
Mr. Bell’s Conviction is Vacated
303. Armed with this trove of newly discovered evidence, the QDAO, through its
Conviction Integrity Unit, together with Mr. Bell and his co-defendants jointly moved to vacate
the convictions in March 2021.
304. Justice Zayas granted the motion on March 5, 2021 (amended March 8, 2021) and
excoriated the law enforcement officials involved in the process.
305. While the QDAO joined Mr. Bell’s request that his conviction be vacated, the
office took the position that the withholding of Brady material was a good-faith mistake.
306. Justice Zayas found the People’s assertion of good faith “puzzling” and concluded
that government’s handling of the case “leaves the distinct impression that the suppression of the
Speedstick information was not an isolated instance of misconduct, but part of a larger pattern of
behavior that was calculated to deprive the defendants of fair trials.” Bell, 71 Misc. 3d at 664-65
(emphasis added).
307. Justice Zayas elaborated that law enforcement’s conduct in this case was
particularly “egregious given that the death penalty was being sought against 19-year-old George
Bell.”
308. Justice Zayas emphasized that the “stakes could not have been higher” with the
People seeking the death penalty against Mr. Bell but that the prosecution nonetheless
“completely abdicated its truth-seeking role.” Bell, 71 Misc. 3d at 659.
309. In addition to his finding of clear prosecutorial misconduct, Justice Zayas noted
that that the circumstances surrounding Mr. Bell’s confession and the contents thereof “raise
44
legitimate concerns about [its] reliability” and that the rest of the People’s case against Mr. Bell
was “far from iron clad.” Id. at 663.
310. On June 4, 2021, Mr. Bell’s indictment was dismissed with prejudice upon
motion by the QDAO on newly discovered evidence grounds and all charges were dropped.
311. In announcing the decision to seek to dismiss the indictment, the QDAO
explained that between March and June of 2021, it had “conducted an extensive and exhaustive
investigation” in which it: (1) reviewed all relevant documentary evidence, including both
documents related to Mr. Bell’s case and the files of numerous other NYPD investigations of the
alternate suspects in this case; (2) interviewed of over 60 fact witnesses; (3) reviewed “hundreds
and hundreds” of hours electronic evidence; and (4) reviewed “hundreds of hours” of forensic
testing involving DNA evidence, ballistics evidence and the re-testing of fingerprint evidence.
312. This thorough investigation did not turn up a shred of evidence implicating
George Bell.
313. After twenty-four years behind bars, Mr. Bell could finally re-enter free society
and at the age of 44.6
The Unconstitutional Policies and Practices of the Queens DA
314. Certain aspects of the critical misconduct of the QDAO in Mr. Bell’s case that
contributed to his wrongful conviction were not the result of one-off bad actors but of office-
wide policies and practices that encouraged Brady violations as a means of securing convictions.
315. These practices routinely deprived criminal defendants of their fair trial rights.
6
Although Mr. Bell’s conviction was not vacated until the police and the DA’s misconduct was exposed, Mr. Bell
never stopped fighting for his innocence over 24 years of incarceration. See People v. Bell, 307 A.D.2d 1047 (2d
Dep’t 2003); People v. Bell, 1 N.Y.3d 568; Bell v. Ercole, No. 05 Civ. 4532 , 2008 WL 2484585 (E.D.N.Y. June 20,
2008); Bell v. Ercole, 368 F. App’x 216 (2d Cir. 2010); Bel v. Ercole, No. 05 Civ. 4532 E, 2011 WL 5040436
(E.D.N.Y. Oct. 21, 2011); Bell v. Ercole, 471 F. App’x 17 (2d Cir. 2012); Bell v. Lee, 568 U.S. 866 (2012).
45
316. These practices were employed in Mr. Bell’s case and cost him twenty-four years
of his life.
317. There are two unlawful practices of the QDAO office that significantly
contributed to Mr. Bell’s conviction.
318. First, the QDAO deliberately siloed information in a manner that made it
exceedingly difficult for prosecutors across different bureaus to share information and provided
“plausible deniability” for prosecutors who easily could have accessed exculpatory materials to
produce to the defense had this siloing practice not existed.
319. As a result, when Brady requests were made, prosecutors would only be privy to
the information stored in the files of their own bureaus.
320. There was no centralized method to access information across the office.
321. An ADA attempting to locate materials related to a particular topic or
investigation could not easily do so.
322. There was no custom, policy, practice, or even informal expectation that ADAs
attempt to identify Brady material that was not stored in their bureau. The prevailing norm at the
QDAO was that once an ADA had reviewed documents in his or her own case file or, at most,
his or her own bureau for Brady material, his or her Brady obligations were satisfied.
323. Under governing Supreme Court precedent, a prosecutor “has a duty to learn of
any favorable evidence known to others in the prosecutor’s office, as well as others acting on the
government’s behalf, including the police.” Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 437 (1995).
324. Yet, the QDAO had no effective mechanism for prosecutors to access information
known to others in the prosecutor’s office.
46
325. The QDAO provided no training to prosecutors on how to locate Brady material
known to other prosecutors in the office.
326. The QDAO’s customs policies and procedures inhibited prosecutors from
learning of “favorable evidence known to others in the prosecutor’s office.” Kyles, 514 U.S. at
437.
327. This case presents a stark example of how this grossly deficient and
constitutionally infirm method of information storage would lead to the violation of criminal
defendants’ constitutional rights.
328. Based on the information he developed while reinvestigating Mr. Bell’s case, CIU
Director Bryce Benjet stated that “significant” Brady material connecting Speedstick to the
Murders was “not contained in the files of these defendants [Messrs. Bell, Bolt and Johnson].”
329. This finding was confirmed by ADA Testagrossa.
330. ADA Testagrossa has stated that all of the Speedstick material in question,
including his handwritten notes reflecting that “Jason” was Jamal Clark, were in a separate
Speedstick file with a separate ADA in a separate bureau and were “never in the Bell case files.”
331. The Speedstick files were in the Major Crimes and Career Criminal Bureau where
the Speedstick case was being investigated.
332. The Bell files were in the Homicide Bureau.
333. As a result, ADAs Fidel, Dorfman, and Morse could falsely claim that the QDAO
did not have exculpatory files documenting Speedstick’s involvement in the crime at the time
that they responded to Plaintiff’s requests for Brady material.
47
334. As these ADAs have admitted, this office-wide practice of isolating information
to each case’s particular bureau with no policies or procedures to share information between
bureaus was in violation of the requirements of Brady and its progeny.
335. ADA Testagrossa stated that the failure to produce these exculpatory files was a
“law office failure” that occurred as a result of “silo procedures engaged in by the Queens
District Attorney’s Office during the late 1990s.”
336. ADA Testagrossa stated that “as a result of this procedure, there was minimal
sharing of information among the various bureaus and divisions, i.e. the Homicide Investigations
and Homicide Trial Bureaus of the Major Crimes Division were siloed from the Career
Criminal/Major Crimes Bureau of the Trial Division.”
337. ADA Testagrossa explained that these various bureaus were located in different
buildings and thus were “not physically available to prosecutors outside of those bureaus and
their contents were not shared.”
338. The relevant exculpatory files were located in files related to various prosecutions
against Speedstick members.
339. ADA Testagrossa stated that these exculpatory Speedstick files “were not only in
a separate bureau, but also in a separate division apart from the division and bureau which
handled the Bell case,” and to which he had no access.
340. ADA Leventhal, like ADA Testagrossa, called the failure to produce Brady
material a “law office failure” in which “material, known to be gathered by others was not made
available to [the ADAs trying the case].”
341. ADA Leventhal similarly described the QDAO’s practice of isolating information
within bureaus.
48
351. The QDAO’s policy failures do not excuse the trial prosecutors’ misconduct. Mr.
Bell’s counsel cited to specific newspaper reports indicating that Speedstick members were
suspects. ADAs Testagrossa, Leventhal, Dorfman, Fidel, Morse, Lasak, and Cantoni should
have sought out exculpatory materials, wherever located, concerning Speedstick’s involvement
in the murders.
352. Moreover, ADA Testagrossa was aware of Jamal Clark’s involvement in the
murder two years earlier and, given the notoriety of Mr. Bell’s alleged crime, it is inconceivable
that he would not check his prior notes, or review any files related to Jamal Clark at all, before
issuing false denials of the relationship between the cases in open court and calling Mr. Bell’s
defense team “despicable” for attempting to tie the two cases together.
353. The QDAO’s custom, practice, and policy of isolating documents to each
individual bureau without any centralized method for locating files, any process for attorneys to
access files from other bureaus, or any training on locating exculpatory material to comply with
Brady was tailor-made for Brady violations.
354. This custom, practice, and policy of isolating documents to each individual
bureau without any centralized method for locating files, any process for attorneys to access files
from other bureaus, or any training on locating exculpatory material to comply with Brady
enabled an “ostrich” approach to Brady obligations, where prosecutors could claim not to have
seen exculpatory materials. For attorneys who had not been adequately trained, it may have even
allowed them to genuinely believe that they had satisfied their Brady obligations, despite their
failure to comply with basic Supreme Court precedent.
355. This is exactly such a case. It is not plausible that the revelation that Speedstick
was involved in the Astoria Boulevard Murders in 1997 would have just been glossed over. This
51
case was notorious. It involved the murder of a police officer, was the only death penalty case in
the office, and defense counsel (and the press) specifically probed the relationship between
Speedstick, the Astoria Boulevard Murders, and the Flushing attack.
356. Nevertheless, because this information was not stored in the case files, the ADAs
running discovery in Mr. Bell’s case could simply avoid this information.
357. The QDAO’s custom, policy, practice, and procedure of siloing information such
that attorneys in one bureau had no centralized access to information in other bureaus and no
QDAO policy or expectation that attorneys would search for Brady material in other bureaus is
unconstitutional on its face. Prosecutors have an obligation to learn “of any favorable evidence
known to others in the prosecutor’s office,” Kyles, 514 U.S. at 437, and a system that precludes
those responsible for identifying Brady material from accessing any material outside of their own
bureau is obviously deficient.
358. So too is the QDAO’s practice of failing to train new prosecutors on their Brady
obligations.
359. Even were the deficiencies of these practices not obvious (they are), the QDAO
was also on notice that its practices for locating and producing Brady material were inadequate
and violated criminal defendants’ constitutional rights.
360. In the period shortly before Mr. Bell’s arrest, the Court of Appeals and the Second
Department reversed numerous convictions as a result of the QDAO’s failure to comply with
Brady (and the state law equivalent).
361. For example, in People v. Steadman/Blair, 82 N.Y.2d 1 (1993), the Court of
Appeals found that the QDAO made a “determined effort” to avoid its Brady obligations by
“shield[ing]” the trial ADAs from knowledge of an agreement with a cooperating witness. Id. at
52
7. See also People v. Banch, 80 N.Y.2d 610, 621 (1992) (reversing conviction due to Rosario
violation and noting the QDAO’s “seeming lack of care in discharging their discovery
obligation”).
362. In People v. Baba-Ali, 179 A.D.2d 725 (2d Dep’t 1992), the Second Department
chastised the QDAO for an “inexcusable” failure to produce exculpatory records when they were
“under court order to do so” and “had had them in their possession for several months.” Id. at
729-30. See also People v. Shim, 218 A.D.2d 757 (2d Dep’t 1995) (faulting the QDAO for
failing to disclose potential impeachment evidence); People v. Fearnot, 200 A.D.2d 583 (2d
Dep’t 1994) (reversal due to multiple Rosario violations); People v. Kirchner, 200 A.D.2d 766
(2d Dep’t 1994) (reversing conviction because QDAO failed to disclose potential impeachment
evidence).
363. The obvious deficiency of these policies and QDAO’s notice from court decisions
of numerous prior Brady/Rosario violations made it foreseeable to Defendant City of New York
that prosecutors would not locate Brady material stored outside the case file, particularly where
stored in other bureaus, and thus withhold Brady material from criminal defendants.
364. This unlawful policy, practice, or custom of Defendant City of New York was a
substantial factor in bringing about the violations of Plaintiff’s rights under the Constitution and
laws of the United States and in causing his wrongful conviction, imprisonment and related
damages.
365. Second, the QDAO as delegee of the Defendant City of New York had a custom
and practice not to internally investigate, reprimand, sanction or discipline prosecutors for
misconduct, including frequent Brady violations.
53
366. This custom and practice encouraged, condoned, and ratified the prosecutors’
deliberate and reckless disregard of their constitutional and ethical duties.
367. Under the principles of municipal liability for federal civil rights violations, the
District Attorney of Queens County (or his authorized delegates) has final authority and is the
City’s policymaker in the training, instructing, supervising and disciplining of attorneys.
368. The District Attorney of Queens County, Richard Brown, personally and/or
through his authorized delegates, at all relevant times had final authority, and constituted a City
policymaker for whom the City is liable, with respect to such conduct.
369. In the years before and during Mr. Bell’s conviction, the Queens County District
Attorney’s office, under Mr. Brown and his predecessor, John Santucci, had an extensive history
of prosecutorial misconduct that caused constitutional violations, including, inter alia, Brady
violations and knowing reliance on false testimony and argument and the failure to correct the
same.
370. The leadership of the QDAO knew that even a single instance of prosecutorial
misconduct, if it led to no discipline, could poison the atmosphere of the entire office, as Acting
District Attorney John Ryan acknowledged during a sworn deposition in another prosecutorial
misconduct matter. Mr. Ryan also acknowledged the dire consequences inflicted on those who
wrongfully convicted and agreed that “such dire consequences to others justify dire
consequences to prosecutors who act unethically.”
371. In early 1996, the executive leadership of the QDAO compiled a Prosecutorial
Misconduct Survey (the “Survey”).
372. As the City confirmed in a Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(b)(6) deposition on December 1,
2020 in another matter, the Survey found that, in at least 39 cases, either an appellate court held
54
that the QDAO committed misconduct (22 cases), or the QDAO admitted misconduct absent
such a finding (17 cases).
373. The QDAO’s prosecutorial misconduct in the Survey included all of the above
types of prosecutorial misconduct resulting in constitutional violations, including Brady and
related discovery violations, summation misconduct, improper reliance on false evidence, and
prejudicial degradation of criminal defendants.
374. The instances of misconduct covered by the Survey constituted just a fraction of
the total instances of misconduct the QDAO had committed between 1988 and 1995 and also did
not include numerous additional incidences between 1985 and 1988, when Richard Brown was
an appellate division justice and became aware of the pervasiveness of prosecutorial misconduct
in the QDAO.
375. All, or substantially all, of the QDAO prosecutorial misconduct cited in the
Survey occurred in the few years preceding Mr. Bell’s arrest, trial, and conviction.
376. By way of example, the Survey cited the following cases, which represent a small
sample of the misconduct found in the Survey:
A. People v. Figueroa, 181 A.D.2d 690 (2d Dep’t 1992), ordering a new trial where
the QDAO prosecutor’s summation “went well beyond the bounds of fair advocacy,” including
suggesting that defendant’s alibi was concocted after the witness met with defense counsel.
B. People v. Steadman/Blair, 82 N.Y.2d 1 (1993), reversing a defendant’s

manslaughter conviction where the QDAO made a “determined effort” to avoid its obligations to
disclose exculpatory evidence and to correct false testimony, by employing a “scheme” under
which a QDAO supervisor would make a cooperation agreement with a witness’s attorney, but
not reveal the agreement to the prosecutors handling the defendant’s case at trial, and not correct
the witness’s false testimony denying such an agreement.
C. People v. Fearnot, 200 A.D.2d 583 (2d Dep’t 1994), reversing a conviction where
the QDAO withheld potential impeachment material, suggested without evidence that the
defendant was a prostitute, and tried to inflame the jury by citing the AIDS epidemic, comments
that “went beyond the permissible bounds of broad rhetorical comment and should not be
repeated at a new trial.”
55
D. People v. Montesa, 211 A.D.2d 648 (2d Dep’t 1995), reversing a conviction in
part because the QDAO prosecutor elicited hearsay testimony from a witness and committed
summation misconduct.
E. People v. Giersz, 212 A.D.2d 805 (2d Dep’t 1995), reversing a conviction where a
QDAO prosecutor’s summation “exceeded the broad bounds of rhetorical comment permissible
in closing arguments.”
F. People v. Scott, 217 A.D.2d 564 (2d Dep’t 1995), ordering a new trial where the
QDAO’s misconduct was “so flagrant and so pervasive that it was impossible for the defendant
to receive a fair trial,” including repeatedly referring to defendant as a convicted felon to convict
him based on criminal propensity, and attempting to shift the burden of proof.
G. People v. Moss, 215 A.D.2d 594 (2d Dep’t 1995), reversing a conviction in part
based on the QDAO prosecutor’s disregard of the court’s ruling limiting unfairly prejudicial
evidence, cross–examination questions comparing defendant to Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the
Lambs, and waving of a knife in front of the jury during summation.
H. People v. Leuthner, 216 A.D.2d 327 (2d Dep’t 1995), reversing a conviction due
to serial misconduct by the QDAO prosecutor.
I. People v. James, 218 A.D.2d 709 (2d Dep’t 1995), noting “unacceptable practices
engaged in by the [QDAO] prosecutor.”
J. People v. Elder, 207 A.D.2d 498 (2d Dep’t 1994), reversing a conviction in part
based on QDAO summation misconduct and reliance on unduly prejudicial evidence.
1. Despite the serial misconduct that the Survey revealed, the City has admitted that
the QDAO:
A. Failed to change any QDAO policy;
B. Failed to change any QDAO practice;
C. Failed to change any QDAO procedure;
D. Failed to discipline any QDAO prosecutor;
E. Failed to change its disciplinary process for QDAO prosecutors (in fact, there was
no process);
F. Failed to identify which prosecutors committed the misconduct in the Survey;
G. Failed to incorporate prosecutorial misconduct, including but not limited to court

findings of prosecutorial misconduct, into employment evaluations of QDAO prosecutors;
H. Failed to make any changes to the way prosecutors were evaluated;
56
I. Failed to make any changes to the way prosecutors were supervised;
J. Failed to create additional oversight by upper-level executives in the office;
K. Failed to change any hiring practices for QDAO prosecutors;
L. Failed even to inform trial QDAO prosecutors about the results of the Survey;
M. Also failed to inform appellate QDAO prosecutors about the results of the Survey;
N. Failed to have any office-wide meeting to discuss the Survey or response to the
Survey;
O. Failed to track QDAO prosecutorial misconduct post-Survey;
P. Failed to analyze QDAO prosecutorial misconduct, by type, by prosecutor, or by

any other method; and
Q. Failed to do any follow-up prosecutorial misconduct survey.
2. For his part, District Attorney Brown took no action at all in response to the
Survey.
3. Chief Assistant District Attorney Barry Schwartz was Brown’s number two in the
QDAO, and was delegated responsibility, inter alia, for discipline, promotions, and other
supervision and personnel matters.
377. Schwartz has no memory of the Survey or of almost any case cited in the Survey.
Schwartz has stated in sworn deposition testimony that he has no memory of the QDAO “taking
any kind of action in response” to the Survey.
378. The QDAO’s leadership in 1996 included Brown, Schwartz, and Chief of Appeals
Steven Chananie. John Ryan replaced Schwartz as Chief Assistant in 1997 and remained in that
role through Bell’s conviction in 2002.
379. All of them failed to take any of the above steps in response to the Survey.
380. Nothing in the Survey surprised or could have surprised the QDAO’s leadership.
From the beginning of his tenure in 1991, Brown routinely read appellate decisions in QDAO
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cases. Barry Schwartz also routinely read those cases, as did Chananie. Schwartz also read
QDAO reversal memos that summarized the disposition and reasoning of those cases. Those
cases formed the basis for the results of the Survey.
381. Throughout his tenure, from 1991 through the Bell trial and after, District
Attorney Brown knew about prosecutorial misconduct by QDAO prosecutors.
382. Brown and Schwartz purportedly “expressed concern” to each other “about
reversals that characterized the trial assistant engaging in what the courts like to call
‘prosecutorial misconduct.’”
383. Yet neither took any systemic action to address, prevent, or punish prosecutorial
misconduct in the QDAO.
384. As damning as the Survey was, it contained a woefully incomplete summary of
QDAO prosecutorial misconduct in the early 1990s.
385. A number of prosecutors apparently failed to respond to the Survey, and the
Survey missed recent misconduct of a number of prosecutors who had recently left the QDAO.
386. As a result, at least 19 decisions (almost all appellate cases) not reflected in the
survey found additional prosecutorial misconduct by the QDAO between 1991 and 1995
(“Additional Misconduct”).
387. The QDAO, including Brown and Schwartz, read and knew about these decisions,
all of which were filed and available to the general public.
388. The Additional Misconduct cited in these decisions was wide ranging, including
Brady and Rosario violations, improper cross-examination, violation of court orders, summation
misconduct, improperly eliciting evidence at trial, and improperly coaching a People’s witness at
trial.
58
389. Decisions reflecting Additional Misconduct include, but are not limited to:
A. People v. Stevens, 174 A.D.2d 640 (2d Dep’t 1991), reversing a conviction in part
based on the QDAO prosecutor’s statement in summation that “if this defendant wasn’t charged
with sodomy . . . he should have been,” in a case where the defendant had not been indicted for
sodomy and the complainant had not testified that sodomy had occurred.
B. People v. Gunther, 175 A.D.2d 262 (2d Dep’t 1991), reversing a conviction
where the QDAO prosecutor improperly attempted to show defendant’s propensity to commit the
charged crime of dealing cocaine by extensively cross-examining him on past convictions for
dealing marijuana, in “a deliberate and calculated strategy to convict on the basis of improper
and prejudicial hyperbole.”
C. People v. Gaskins, 171 A.D.2d 272 (2d Dep’t 1991), reversing a conviction where
the QDAO prosecutor failed to disclose the videotape of an interview of the alleged child victim.
D. People v. Parker, 178 A.D.2d 665 (2d Dep’t 1991), ordering a new trial in part
based on the QDAO prosecutor’s summation misconduct.
E. People v. Curry, 153 Misc.2d 61 (Sup. Ct. Queens Cty. Jan. 16, 1992), dismissing
the indictment because the QDAO prosecutor failed to inform the grand jury that the
complainant had recanted his identification and report of defendant’s involvement in the crime.
F. People v. Baba-Ali, 179 A.D.2d 725 (2d Dep’t 1992), reversing a rape conviction
where, despite a court order, the QDAO prosecutor failed until the eve of trial to disclose
medical records finding no signs of sexual abuse.
G. People v. Nieves, 186 A.D.2d 276 (2d Dep’t 1992), reversing a conviction where
the QDAO prosecutor engaged in improper cross-examination and summation.
H. People v. James, 184 A.D.2d 582 (2d Dep’t 1992), reversing a conviction where
the QDAO prosecutor represented that the People would not introduce unfairly prejudicial
evidence of defendant’s prior possession of drugs, but then cross-examined a police officer
extensively on that evidence and emphasized it in summation.
I. People v. Andre, 185 A.D.2d 276 (2d Dep’t 1992), reversing a conviction in part
because of the QDAO prosecutor’s summation misconduct.
J. People v. Odle, 187 A.D.2d 536 (2d Dep’t 1992), ordering a new trial where the
QDAO prosecutor repeatedly and improperly elicited evidence of uncharged crimes to show
criminal propensity and bad character, and committed summation misconduct.
K. People v. Banch, 80 N.Y.2d 610 (1992), reversing a conviction where the QDAO
prosecutor failed to disclose several pieces of potential impeachment material, and noting “the
People’s seeming lack of care in discharging their discovery obligation.”
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L. People v. Jenkins, Ind. No. 2213/1992, declaring a mistrial “based on [QDAO]

ADA Landa’s ‘prosecutorial misconduct’ in ‘hold[ing] back exculpatory information as long as
possible’ from defense counsel.”
M. People v. Robinson, 190 A.D.2d 697 (2d Dep’t 1993), setting aside the verdict
because the QDAO “prosecutor’s misconduct deprived [defendant] of a fair trial,” including
“prepp[ing]” an officer during a recess to “rehabilitate him on his cross-examination,” and
committing summation misconduct.
N. People v. Robinson, 191 A.D.2d 595 (2d Dep’t 1993), ordering a new trial where
the QDAO prosecutor “engaged in a series of improper remarks and tactics,” including eliciting
testimony about defendant’s post-arrest silence, committing summation misconduct, eliciting
improper expert testimony, and “derisive[ly]” commenting on the presumption of innocence.
O. People v. Kirchner, 200 A.D.2d 766 (2d Dep’t 1994), reversing a conviction
where the QDAO failed to disclose potential impeachment evidence.
P. People v. Shim, 218 A.D.2d 757 (2d Dep’t 1995), faulting the QDAO for failing
to disclose potential impeachment evidence.
390. The QDAO’s failure to include any of the Additional Misconduct in the Survey is
further evidence of deliberate indifference to prosecutorial misconduct in the office.
391. In response to the Additional Misconduct, the QDAO:
A. Failed to change any QDAO policy;
B. Failed to change any QDAO practice;
C. Failed to change any QDAO procedure;
D. Failed to discipline any QDAO prosecutor; and
E. Failed to implement any new training.
392. After yet another reversal due to a finding of prosecutorial misconduct District
Attorney Brown wrote a note to his Chief Assistant, Jack Ryan, stating: “Jack – Let’s discuss
how to handle – I think we’ve been getting away with this kind of stuff for a long time.”
393. Notwithstanding rampant, wide-ranging prosecutorial misconduct in the QDAO,
from at least June 1991 through January 1997 (Barry Schwartz’s tenure as Chief Assistant), and
continuing the following five years through January 2002 (under his successor, John Ryan), and
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DA Brown’s acknowledgement that the office had been “getting away with this kind of stuff for
a long time,” the QDAO still:
A. Failed to discipline a single QDAO prosecutor for prosecutorial misconduct;
B. Failed to create a handbook or manual setting forth rules and procedures for
prosecutors, including how to comply with their constitutional obligations;
C. Per Schwartz’ sworn testimony, had “no procedure in place” for “investigating
prosecutorial misconduct of any type”;
D. Failed to note prosecutorial misconduct in an employment evaluation;
E. Failed to have any practice or procedure to note prosecutorial misconduct in a
personnel file;
F. Had no policy, practice, or procedure to use reversal memos as part of
employment evaluations;
G. Failed to create any practice, policy or procedure to ensure that supervisors were
aware of findings of prosecutorial impropriety;
H. Failed to create any practice, policy or procedure to make Schwartz, Brown, or
Ryan aware of misconduct by prosecutors before promoting them or increasing
their compensation;
I. Failed to include reversal memos, appellate decisions, or any document that might
reflect prosecutorial misconduct in the packets compiled before Schwartz or Ryan
recommended a promotion;
J. Failed to keep records of findings of misconduct by individual prosecutor, by
bureau, or by the Office as a whole;
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K. Failed to conduct any review of QDAO prosecutorial misconduct before June
199; and
L. Failed to do any trend analysis of prosecutorial misconduct over time.
394. In addition to the approximately 58 cases of prosecutorial misconduct set forth
supra, in opinions dated 1996, 1997, and after, courts repeatedly assailed the QDAO for yet
more prosecutorial misconduct that occurred before Mr. Bell’s conviction, yet there was no
adverse consequence to the prosecutors who were responsible and no change in office policy,
practice or procedure to prevent still more such occurrences in the future.
395. This misconduct included Rosario violations, Brady violations, suborning false
testimony, and improper opening statements.
396. Some examples illustrate how the QDAO created an office culture where
prosecutorial misconduct was ignored, condoned, and rewarded.
Prosecutor A.7
397. In 1990, QDAO prosecutor A. prosecuted Robin Tellier. A. (i) failed to disclose
Rosario material; (ii) failed to disclose Giglio material; (iii) misrepresented to defense counsel
that all Brady and Rosario material had been disclosed; (iv) misrepresented to the court whether
federal prosecutors who had debriefed a People’s witness were observing the trial; and (v)
allowed a People’s witness to claim a loss of memory concerning prior crimes, when information
concerning those crimes was contained in the debriefing notes A. had failed to disclose.
398. The Grievance Committee for the Ninth Judicial District later admonished A. for
concealing the notes, for a “misrepresentation” to the court, and for engaging in “conduct
involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.”
7
Prosecutors here are identified by the first initial of their last name.
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399. On October 1, 1991, the QDAO nevertheless gave A. an “Excellent” evaluation,
noting: “This Assistant likes to win and fights towards that end.”
400. On May 1, 1992, the QDAO gave A. a “Very Good” evaluation, stating that A. “is
a true warrior in that he never backs down or is intimidated.”
401. Neither evaluation mentioned the Tellier case, or A.’s unethical and illegal
conduct in that case.
402. On March 29, 1993, the Second Department found in People v. Kane that A.
improperly in opening and closing arguments “impl[ied] the defendant’s guilt of an unrelated
burglary.”
403. On September 1, 1993, the QDAO’s Dan Saunders gave A. an “Outstanding”
evaluation, noting that A. “acquitted himself well with every assignment he’s undertaken” and
that “[h]is judgment, temperament and advocacy skills are all outstanding.” (Emphasis added.)
404. Saunders was then the Chief of Homicide Trials at the QDAO.
405. Saunders’ 1993 evaluation failed to mention the Tellier or the Kane cases, or A.’s
improper conduct in both.
406. On February 2, 1995, the Queens Supreme Court granted a motion to vacate a
conviction in People v. Moustakis, a decision later affirmed by the Second Department. A.
prosecuted that case. The courts found that A. “fail[ed] to turn over 16 pages of notes of detailed
admissions by a prosecution witness concerning his prior criminal history,” details of which the
witness “forgot” on the stand.
407. On August 28, 1995, a few months after the first Moustakis decision, Schwartz
announced to “the Entire Staff” A.’s promotion to Deputy Bureau Chief of the Supreme Court
Long Island City Bureau. There, A. supervised 10-11 prosecutors.
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408. Per his regular practice at the QDAO, Schwartz promoted A. “in consultation with
the district attorney,” Mr. Brown.
409. About two weeks later, on September 15, 1995, in a decision following a March
31, 1995 argument, the Second Department reversed the conviction in People v. Spinelli. A.
prosecuted Spinelli. The Court found that A. improperly cross-examined an officer about the
defendant’s pretrial silence, engaged in summation misconduct, and held that “the prosecutor’s
conduct was fundamentally unfair.”
410. This decision also had no effect on A.’s promotion or, on information and belief,
A.’s career at the QDAO.
Prosecutor B.
411. On December 13, 1993, Brown promoted QDAO prosecutor B. to Deputy Chief
of the Supreme Court Kew Gardens Bureau.
412. On August 22, 1994, the Second Department reversed the conviction in People v.
Elder. B. prosecuted Elder. The Court found that B. engaged in “flagrant” “instances of
prosecutorial misconduct,” in particular, summation misconduct, which “substantially prejudiced
defendant’s case.”
413. Notwithstanding B.’s flagrant misconduct, B. did not receive any discipline, any
adverse consequence, or any new training.
414. To the contrary, on April 27, 1995, Schwartz announced to “the Entire Staff” B.’s
promotion to Chief of the Intake Bureau.
415. There, B. supervised intake for the entire QDAO.
Prosecutor D.
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416. On September 26 1994, the Second Department held in People v. Fanfan that the
QDAO “exceeded the bounds of a proper summation.” D. prosecuted Fanfan.
417. On May 15, 1995, the Second Department reversed the conviction in People v.
Moss. D. prosecuted Moss. The Court founds that D. (i) compared the defendant to Hannibal
Lecter in the film Silence of the Lambs during cross-examination of the defendant; (ii) asked the
jury in summation to “place themselves in the position of victims being threatened by the
defendant”; (iii) disregarded the Court’s Sandoval ruling; and (iv) waved a knife during
summation.
418. Surely a prosecutor like this would be fired, or at least disciplined, in any district
attorney’s office that cared about prosecutorial misconduct.
419. Not the QDAO. On August 25, 1996, Schwartz announced to “the Entire Staff”
D.’s promotion to Supervisor of the Training Bureau.
420. There, fresh off comparing a defendant to Hannibal Lecter and waving a knife in
front of the jury, D. taught prosecutors at the QDAO how to prepare and try cases.
421. D. himself received no discipline or further training as a result of Fanfan or Moss.
Prosecutor K.
422. On June 10, 1991, the Second Department reversed the conviction in People v.
Stevens. K. prosecuted Stevens. As noted supra, the Court found that K. improperly stated in
summation that “if this defendant wasn’t charged with sodomy . . . he should have been,” in a
case where the defendant had not been indicted for sodomy and the complainant had not testified
that an act of sodomy had occurred.
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423. In July 1991, Chief of Training Andrew Zwerling and Schwartz made K. a co-
supervisor of the new QDAO Training Bureau. There, she trained prosecutors in all aspects of
trial practice.
424. On August 31, 1992, the Second Department reversed the conviction in People v.
Clausell. K. prosecuted Clausell. The Court found that K. (i) failed to produce Brady material;
(ii) before opening statements, misrepresented to the trial court and to defense counsel that the
Brady material did not exist; (iii) after an officer’s testimony, again mispresented to the trial
court that the Brady material did not exist; and (iv) again failed to produce the Brady material.
425. The defense then subpoenaed the material from the police department and
received it, nine days after the conviction.
426. After K.’s serial misconduct in Clausell, and notwithstanding that K. was a
supervisor in the Training Bureau, the QDAO did not discipline her, give her any additional
training, place a note in her evaluation or personnel file, or apparently take any other action.
427. To the contrary, the QDAO gave K. twelve salary increases, three bonuses, and in
1997 promoted her, again, to become a Bureau Chief.
Prosecutor L.
428. On February 29, 1988, the Second Department reversed the conviction in People
v. Romain. L. prosecuted Romain. The Court found that L. engaged in “gross distortion” in
summation, “the magnitude of which was highly prejudicial.”
429. In May 1994, in the case of People v. Moore, L. questioned several witnesses
about prohibited evidence (pending and other prior crimes), then compounded the misconduct by
summing up on the prohibited evidence.
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430. On May 15, 1996, a QDAO executive (John Ryan) wrote Chief of Appeals Steven
Chananie, Schwartz, and Andrew Zwerling a memo that L. “did engage in misconduct,” which
“we did not defend in our [appellate] brief.”
431. Ryan also wrote that the Second Department “once again, expressed their own
concerns about the issue” of the QDAO’s “prosecutorial misconduct.” (Emphasis added.)
432. The memo also noted Brown’s “continuing concern about prosecutorial
misconduct” in the QDAO.
433. Nevertheless, after this memo, the QDAO gave L. five salary increases, one
bonus, and a promotion to Intake Supervisor.
434. QDAO prosecutors A., B., D., K., and L. are merely a few examples of QDAO
prosecutors who violated the Constitution in the years leading to Mr. Bell’s conviction and
immediately following it, faced no adverse action, received no further training or supervision,
and continued to thrive and progress in the office.
435. While additional training and discipline for misconduct was virtually non-
existent, ADA Testagrossa himself has testified at a deposition in another matter that prosecutors
in the QDAO’s office at the time kept close tally of their trial win-loss records. He also stated he
perceived that their victory percentage affected their promotions and compensation.
436. In sum, policymakers at the QDAO’s office created a culture where winning
mattered more than following the Constitution. They acted with deliberate indifference to
constitutional violations generally, based on policy and practice, including those that injured
Plaintiff, and failed to take any steps to protect against constitutional harms certain to occur
67
without policies, practices, or procedures in place to prevent, address, or punish prosecutorial
misconduct.8
437. To the contrary, the deliberate indifference and policies and practices of QDAO
policymakers, including the District Attorney and his designees, created a culture of
prosecutorial misconduct that they knew was highly likely to cause further violations and which,
in fact, did so in numerous cases, including Plaintiff’s case.
438. These policies and practices which condoned and encouraged the suppression of
Brady material in the name of securing a conviction, (and, at a minimum ensured there would be
no repercussion for prosecutors who did so) were a proximate cause of the constitutional
violations of ADAs Lasak, Testagrossa, Leventhal, Cantoni, Dorfman, Morse, and Fidel set forth
supra, which caused the conviction of Plaintiff.
439. These prosecutors knew that the QDAO valued winning over following the
Constitution (and all the more so when a police officer was killed and the Mayor was demanding
swift punishment), and they were right, which caused the conviction of Plaintiff.
440. The QDAO’s policy, practice, and procedure of allowing prosecutors to commit
prosecutorial misconduct in dozens of cases, without consequence, made it foreseeable to
Defendant City of New York that prosecutors would commit misconduct in Mr. Bell’s case,
including withholding Brady material and then painting Mr. Bell’s defense team as “despicable”
and on a “fishing expedition” for trying to hold the prosecution to its Constitutional obligations.
8
See also Michael Powell, Misconduct by Prosecutors, Once Again, N.Y. Times (Aug. 13, 2012),
http://www nytimes.com/2012/-8/14/nyregion/new-charge-of-prosecutorial-misconduct-inqueens.html (observing
history of prosecutorial misconduct at the QDAO under then-DA Richard Brown and quoting Marvin Schechter,
chairman of the criminal justice section of the New York State Bar Association, as saying “Assistant district
attorneys do not emerge from law school with a genetic disposition” to hide Brady material. “Instead this is
something which is learned and taught.”).
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441. These unlawful policies, practices, and customs of Defendant City were a
substantial factor in causing the violations of Plaintiff’s rights under the Constitution and laws of
the United States and in causing his wrongful conviction, imprisonment and related damages.
Mr. Bell Has Been Grievously Injured
442. Mr. Bell entered prison at the age of 19 and walked out at the age of 44. In that
time, he lost the opportunity to finish school, pursue a career, develop personal relationships, and
live a meaningful life. While Mr. Bell was incarcerated, he missed family celebrations which
brough his close-knit family together—weddings, birthday parties, and baptisms, just to name a
few. He also missed the opportunity to be with his family during difficult times. When Mr. Bell
did attend the funeral of his grandmother who passed away while he was incarcerated, he was
subject to degrading treatment as corrections officers used the grief-filled occasion to humiliate
Mr. Bell in front of his loved ones.
443. As a result of Defendants’ conduct Mr. Bell suffered physical and mental injuries,
loss of liberty, and economic harm. While waiting for his trial to begin, from the age of 19 to 22,
Mr. Bell was detained at Rikers Island, desperate for law enforcement to recognize he was
innocent and distraught over the false accusations. He faced the death penalty, and went to sleep
each night knowing he might be murdered by the state for a crime he did not commit. Having
escaped the death penalty, Mr. Bell then faced spending his whole life in prison, without even
the possibility of parole. For 24 years he endured the atrocities of life in prison. He faced threats
and derision from corrections officers who wrongfully believed he had murdered a cop and from
fellow inmates who branded him a “rat” who had “snitched” on his supposed accomplice.
444. While Mr. Bell is finally free, he will carry the trauma of false imprisonment and
false accusations of murder for the rest of his life.
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FIRST CLAIM FOR RELIEF

42 U.S.C. § 1983 Claim for Violation of Mr. Bell’s Right
Against Self-Incrimination and to a Fair Trial
(Against Defendants Pia and Sica )
445. Plaintiff realleges the above paragraphs as if they were fully set forth herein.
446. Defendants Pia and Sica, acting individually and in concert, coerced Mr. Bell into
making incriminating statements against himself, fabricated evidence, and concealed material
exculpatory and impeachment evidence thereby depriving Mr. Bell of his Fifth, Sixth, and
Fourteenth Amendment rights to be free from self-incrimination and to be provided a fair trial.
447. Specifically, Pia and Sica deliberately and recklessly coerced inculpatory
statements from Mr. Bell through physical violence and intimidation which were not the product
of Mr. Bell’s free will and rational intellect, and supplied Mr. Bell with specific details of the
crime which Mr. Bell subsequently incorporated and repeated in allegedly inculpatory
statements.
448. Defendants Pia and Sica falsely represented to prosecutors in police reports, in the
course of charging and indicting Mr. Bell, and at trial, that Mr. Bell’s statements were in fact
freely and voluntarily given, and that Mr. Bell had independent knowledge of the crime that
actually had been provided to him by the Defendants. The false evidence which Defendants Pia
and Sica thereby fabricated was introduced against Mr. Bell at trial and was a basis for the jury’s
verdict against him.
449. Defendants Pia and Sica did not disclose to prosecutors that they obtained Mr.
Bell’s confession through physical violence and mental coercion.
450. Defendants Pia and Sica acted under pretense and color of state law. Their acts
were beyond the scope of their jurisdiction, without authority of law, and in abuse of their
powers. They acted with the specific intent to deprive Plaintiff of his constitutional rights.
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451. As a direct and proximate result of the Defendants’ actions, Mr. Bell was wrongly
prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned over twenty-four years and suffered other grievous and
continuing injuries and damages.
SECOND CLAIM FOR RELIEF

42 U.S.C. § 1983 Claim for Deprivation of Liberty Without Due
Process of Law and Denial of a Fair Trial
(Against Defendants Pia, Sica, Heider, Bubelnik, Bovino, Cardamone, Brooks, and Nevins)
453. The Individual Defendants, acting individually and in concert, fabricated evidence
and concealed material exculpatory and impeachment evidence thereby depriving Mr. Bell of
his Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
454. Defendant Sica fabricated a DD5 claiming that he had spoken to Mr. Bell after the
initial false confession and that Mr. Bell had changed his statement to reflect that his friend
Mendez Collier had not participated in the crime.
455. Defendant Pia acted in concert with Defendant Sica and did not intervene when
Defendant Sica created this falsified DD5.
456. Defendants Sica and Pia falsely represented to prosecutors, in the course of
charging and indicting Mr. Bell, and at trial, that this DD5 was accurate.
457. This false evidence which Defendants Sica and Pia thereby fabricated was
introduced against Mr. Bell at trial and was a basis for the jury’s verdict against him
458. Defendants Cardamone and Brooks deliberately and recklessly coerced and/or
fabricated statements from Gary Johnson. These fabricated statements were provided to the
QDAO and would have been likely to influence a jury’s decision were the evidence to be
presented a trial.
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459. Defendants Bubelnik and Bovino deliberately and recklessly coerced and/or
fabricated statements from Jason Ligon. These fabricated statements were provided to the
QDAO and would have been likely to influence a jury’s decision were the evidence to be
presented a trial.
460. Upon information and belief, Defendant Heider affirmatively misled ADAs
Testagrossa and Leventhal at trial by representing that the Speedstick investigation had no
relation to the Astoria Boulevard Murders.
461. Upon information and belief, the Individual Defendants knowingly and
deliberately chose not to document or disclose to the prosecutors information that was favorable
and material to Mr. Bell’s defense. The suppressed evidence included but is not limited to:
a. That Defendants Pia, Sica, Heider, Bubelnik and Bovino were investigating
Speedstick in connection with the Astoria Boulevard Murders, including
investigating Jamal Clark;
b. That Jason Ligon’s confession was coerced;
c. That Gary Johnson’s confession was coerced;
d. That Defendants Bubelnik and Bovino had been sued on allegations that they had
previously coerced a false confession (Defendants Bublenick and Bovino only);
and
e. That Defendant Bubelnik falsified a DD5 claiming that a third-party had told her
she “had the right people” (Defendants Bubelnik and Bovino only).
462. Moreover, Defendants Pia, Sica, Heider, Bubelnik, and Bovino worked in concert
deliberately to stop developing evidence that Jamal Clark was “Jason” and had participated in the
Astoria Boulevard Murders in order to hide Speedstick’s involvement and preserve the
prosecution of Mr. Bell.
463. If these fabrications and exculpatory and material impeachment evidence were
known to Mr. Bell’s defense team and had been documented and/or disclosed, such evidence
72
would have tended to prove that Speedstick, not Mr. Bell, committed the Astoria Boulevard
Murders and that Mr. Bell’s confession was false, and cast doubt on the entire police
investigation and prosecution.
464. The aforesaid conduct, which Defendants committed, operated to deprive Mr.
Bell of his rights under the Constitution and the laws of the United States to timely disclosure of
all material evidence favorable to the defense pursuant to the Due Process and Fair Trial Clauses
of the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
THIRD CLAIM FOR RELIEF

42 U.S.C. § 1983 Malicious Prosecution
(Against Defendants Pia and Sica)
467. Defendants Pia and Sica, despite knowing that probable cause did not exist to
arrest and prosecute Mr. Bell for the Murders, and though the grand jury’s probable cause
determination was vitiated by these Defendants’ undisclosed misconduct, coerced confession,
and fabrication of evidence, acted individually and in concert to cause Mr. Bell to be wrongfully
arrested and prosecuted for those crimes.
468. In signing the criminal complaint, Defendant Pia, acting in concert with
Defendant Sica, lacked probable cause to initiate the prosecution of Mr. Bell and the indictment
and conviction of Mr. Bell was procured by fraud, perjury and presentation of fabricated
evidence.
73
469. False and fabricated evidence was given by Defendants Pia and Sica to the
prosecutor, the Grand Jury and the Petit Jury.
470. Defendants Pia and Sica acted with malice, and knew or were deliberately and
recklessly indifferent to the truth that probable cause did not exist to arrest, indict and prosecute
Mr. Bell.
471. Defendants Pia and Sica prosecuted Mr. Bell though they knew the only
compelling evidence against him was his confession, which they had coerced through physical
violence and intimidation.
472. The proceeding was terminated in Mr. Bell’s favor when his conviction was
vacated on March 5, 2021, and when the indictment was dismissed on June 4, 2021.
474. No evidence connected Mr. Bell to the Murders.
475. Mr. Bell is in fact innocent and there is overwhelming evidence of Mr. Bell’s
innocence.
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FOURTH CLAIM FOR RELIEF

42 U.S.C. § 1983 Monell Claim for Actions of the Queens County District Attorney’s Office
(Against Defendant City of New York)
479. Under the principles of municipal liability for federal civil rights violations, the
District Attorney of Queens County (or his authorized delegates) has final authority and is the
City's policymaker in the training, instructing, supervising and disciplining of attorneys.
480. As set forth above, the District Attorney of Queens County, Richard Brown,
personally and/or through his authorized delegates, at all relevant times had final authority, and
constituted a City policymaker for whom the City is liable with respect to such conduct.
481. At the time of Mr. Bell’s arrest, trial, and conviction, the QDAO had a custom
and practice of siloing information such that prosecutors could not access information known to
others in the prosecutor’s office, regardless of whether it was apparent that relevant Brady
material might be held elsewhere in the office.
482. At the time of Mr. Bell’s arrest, trial, and conviction, the QDAO had a custom
and practice of failing to train Assistant District Attorney’s regarding their Brady obligations.
483. These customs and practices facilitated Brady violations as prosecutors would
respond to requests without searching the full range of potentially exculpatory files, would fail to
search for or locate potentially exculpatory files, and could claim they had no knowledge of
exculpatory information.
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484. The ADAs responsible for the prosecution of Mr. Bell acted in accordance with
these QDAO practices, policies, and customs when they repeatedly, without fear of reprisal,
withheld valuable Brady material (and, at times, failed to search and locate exculpatory
materials) clearly indicating that someone else had, in fact, committed the murder for which they
were seeking the death penalty against Mr. Bell (among other valuable exculpatory evidence),
made multiple false statements in open court that no Brady material existed, and used this
withheld information against Mr. Bell, painting his defense team as “despicable” for having the
audacity to try to elicit that someone else had committed the crime.
485. At the time of Mr. Bell’s arrest, trial, and conviction, the Queens District
Attorney’s Office also had a custom and practice not to internally investigate, reprimand,
sanction or discipline prosecutors for misconduct, including frequent Brady violations.
486. This custom and practice encouraged, condoned and ratified the prosecutors’
deliberate and reckless disregard of their constitutional and ethical duties.
487. In the years before and during Mr. Bell’s conviction, the Queens County District
Attorney’s office, under Mr. Brown and his predecessor, John Santucci, had an extensive history
of prosecutorial misconduct that caused constitutional violations, including, inter alia, Brady
violations and knowing reliance on false testimony.
488. Policymakers at the QDAO, acting with deliberate indifference to these
constitutional violations, including those that injured Plaintiff, failed to take any steps to protect
against constitutional harms certain to occur without policies, practices, or procedures in place to
prevent, address, or punish prosecutorial misconduct.
489. To the contrary, the deliberate indifference and policies and practices of QDAO
policymakers, including the District Attorney and his designees, created a culture of
76
prosecutorial misconduct that they knew was highly likely to result in further violations and
which, in fact, did so in numerous cases, including Plaintiff’s case.
490. The ADAs responsible for the prosecution of Mr. Bell acted in accordance with
these QDAO practices, policies, and customs when they repeatedly, without fear of reprisal,
withheld valuable Brady material (and, in the case of some ADAs, failed to search for such
material) indicating that someone else had committed the murder for which they were seeking
the death penalty against Mr. Bell (among other valuable exculpatory evidence), made multiple
false statements in open court that no Brady material existed, and even used this withheld
information against Mr. Bell, painting his defense team as “despicable” for having the audacity
to try to elicit that someone else had committed the crime.
491. The ADAs responsible for the prosecution acted in accordance with these QDAO
practices, policies, and customs when they failed to repeatedly represented that there was no
Brady material available because they were unaware of material contained outside the case files
of Plaintiff and his co-defendant.
492. This QDAO culture, where winning mattered more than following the
Constitution, was a proximate cause of the constitutional violations set forth supra.
493. These QDAO policies, practices, and procedures of failing to have an effective
mechanism for prosecutors to access information known to others in the prosecutor’s office
facilitated Brady violations, allowed prosecutors to commit prosecutorial misconduct in dozens
of cases, without consequence, and made it foreseeable to Defendant City of New York that
prosecutors would commit misconduct in Mr. Bell’s case, including withholding Brady material,
falsely claiming no Brady material existed and then painting the defense as “despicable” for
defending their clients and trying to hold the prosecution to its constitutional obligations.
77
494. These unlawful policies, practices, procedures, and customs of Defendant City
were a substantial factor in bringing about the violations of Plaintiff's rights under the
Constitution and laws of the United States and in causing his wrongful conviction, imprisonment
and related damages.
FIFTH CLAIM FOR RELIEF

Common Law Malicious Prosecution
(Against Defendants Pia, Sica, and the City of New York)
496. Defendants Pia and Sica, despite knowing that probable cause did not exist to
arrest and prosecute Mr. Bell for the Murders, and though the grand jury’s probable cause
determination was vitiated by these defendants’ undisclosed misconduct, coerced confession, and
fabrication of evidence acted individually and in concert to cause Mr. Bell to be wrongfully
arrested and prosecuted for those crimes.
497. Defendant Pia lacked probable cause to initiate the prosecution of Mr. Bell and
the indictment and conviction of Mr. Bell was procured by fraud, perjury and presentation of
fabricated evidence.
498. False and fabricated evidence was given by Defendants Pia and Sica to the
prosecutor, the Grand Jury, and the Petit Jury.
499. Defendants Pia and Sica acted with malice, and knew or were deliberately and
recklessly indifferent to the truth that probable cause did not exist to arrest, indict and prosecute
Mr. Bell.
500. Defendants Pia and Sica prosecuted Mr. Bell regardless of the fact that
Defendants knew the only compelling evidence against him was his confession, which they had
coerced through physical violence and intimidation.
78
501. The proceeding was terminated in Mr. Bell’s favor when his conviction was
vacated on March 5, 2018 and when the indictment was dismissed on June 4, 2021.
503. No evidence connected Mr. Bell to the Murder.
504. Mr. Bell is in fact innocent and there is overwhelming evidence of Mr. Bell’s
innocence.
506. Defendant the City of New York, as employer of Defendants Pia and Sica, is
responsible for the officers’ wrongdoing under the doctrine of respondeat superior.
prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned over twenty-four years and suffered the other grievous
and continuing injuries and damages as set forth above.
WHEREFORE, GEORGE BELL prays as follows:
A. That the Court award compensatory damages in the amount of at least $50 million
to Plaintiff and against the Defendants the City of New York, Louis Pia, Richard
Sica, Paul Heider, Maryanne Bubelnik, Frank Bovino, Nancy Cardamone, as
79
Administratrix of the Estate of Andrew Cardamone, Denis Brooks, and William

Nevins jointly and severally;
B. That the Court award punitive damages against the Individual Defendants to be
determined by the jury;
C. For a trial by jury;
D. For pre-judgment and post-judgment interest and recovery of his costs, including
reasonable attorneys’ fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C.§ 1988 for all 42 U.S.C. § 1983
claims; and
E. For any and all other relief to which he may be entitled.
Dated: New York, N.Y.

October 4, 2022
Respectfully submitted,
/s/ Richard D. Emery
Richard D. Emery
Earl S. Ward
Debra L. Greenberger
David Berman
EMERY CELLI BRINCKERHOFF ABADY
WARD & MAAZEL LLP
600 Fifth Avenue, 10th Floor
New York, New York 10020
(212) 763-5000
SCOTT STEVENSON
One Liberty Plaza
33rd Floor
New York, New York 10006
347-276-2299
Attorneys for Plaintiff George Bell
80

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Case 1:22-cv-03251-DG-PK Document 52 Filed 10/14/22 Page 1 of 80 PageID #: 362

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

LLP and Scott Stevenson, Esq., alleges as follows:

“Speedstick”—not Mr. Bell—had committed the crime.

spared his life at the penalty phase of his flawed trial.

homicide to end his ordeal.

misconduct leading up to and during his trial.

8. Law enforcement withheld mountains of Brady material, as recent investigations

possession and that had in fact been investigated.” Id.

encourage the regular suppression of Brady material.

1343 over claims arising under 42 U.S.C. §1983.

days have passed since the service of the Notice of Claim.

General Municipal law Section 50-h.

22. Plaintiff demands a trial by jury.

25. Defendant City of New York (“City”) is a municipality that is a political

Queens County District Attorney’s Office.

Defendant Pia was acting within the scope of his employment.

31. Defendant Nancy Cardamone is the Administratrix of deceased Defendant Policer

was acting within the scope of his employment.

Nineteen-Year-Old George Bell

Education had classified Mr. Bell as “Mildly Mentally Retarded.”

had taken the exam to join the United States Navy.

supportive,” but that Mr. Bell nonetheless was unredeemable.

a shred of difference to the Defendants.2

An Off-Duty Police Officer and a Store Owner are Murdered in Queens

Businessman in Queens, N.Y. Times, Dec. 26, 1996.

around the neighborhood.

1996] in Queens Village.”

police officer on 12/21/96 in 115PCT.”

of participants, and the method of entry into the store.

Mr. Bell is Implicated by a Mentally Unstable Drug Dealer

somehow turn Bigweh from a low-level drug dealer to an accomplice to murder.

falsely claiming that George Bell was the shooter.

not a reliable witness.

Falciano, known as “the Falcon.”

home so he could change from a green jacket to a navy blue one.

own statement) tying Bigweh to this crime.

NYPD Officers Beat and Threaten Mr. Bell Until He Confesses

precinct to help his friend in need.

Bell was taken to the 109th precinct to be interrogated.

precinct in the middle of the night on Christmas.

midnight and 9:30 a.m. on December 25, 1996.

and beaten Mr. Bell in order to obtain that “confession.”

attorney or his family.

by Defendant Detective Pia.

you killed a police officer.”

84. Mr. Bell immediately denied any involvement in any murder.

cursing at Mr. Bell.

interrogation turned violent.

him that he could “use [his] head as a hockey puck.”

Pia hit Mr. Bell and knocked him to the floor.

unbraiding his tightly braided hair.

92. And it did continue, over and over.

unless Mr. Bell told him what he wanted to know.

repeatedly beat Mr. Bell.

cooperate with Pia’s demands.

98. Sica responded, “No, this is how we get things done.”

family again unless he confessed.

chair unless he confessed.