| In SDNY Trial For Murder of Bronxite
Malcolm Cooperator Remembers Nothing Citing
GEO in Queens
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
Honduras
- The
Source - The
Root - etc
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
Dec 5 –
On the second day of 2014 in
The Bronx, New York Shaquille
Malcolm was repeatedly shot
and killed in a building in
the Allerton section.
In arraignments
that followed, Inner City
Press reported
that the death penalty was on
the table, including as to a
co-defendant who has since
pled guilty to a superseding
indictment, Gyancarlos
Espinal.
On December 4 the
two remaining co-defendants
Arius Hopkins and Theryn Jones
a/k/a Old Man Ty were on trial
before U.S. District Court for
the Southern District of New
York Judge Lewis A. Kaplan.
Testifying against them was
now cooperating co-defendant
Alexander Melendez. On
December 4 he described using
a .22 to shoot and kill
Shaquille Malcolm, with orders
and firepower given by the two
mean with six lawyers sitting
at the defense table.
On December
5 Arius Hopkins' lawyer Glenn
A. Garber prepared stacks of
transcripts and other
documents in order to cross
examine Melendez. But to
question after question,
Melendez said "I don't
remember." He didn't remember
what he had said in proffer
sessions.
This
resulted in a Q&A straight
out of Becket:
Garber: "You
remember you said you didn't
remember?"
Melendez: "I
don't remember that."
One thing
Melendez did remember was what
prisons he has been in. After
state prison in Elmira, where
those who allegedly ordered
him to commit murder put money
in his commissary for food and
clothing and he apparently had
a television set stolen, he's
been in the MCC, MDC and GEO,
which he said is in Queens.
Melendez
is represented by CJA lawyer
Matthew Kluger, who has been
in the gallery throughout his
testimony, sometimes behind
Inner City Press, sometimes on
the other side. Judge Kaplan
asked those in the back of the
courtroom not to remonstrate;
regardless, Melendez kept
glancing back at them. In the
hall, some said, "That
[N-word] be lying." We'll have
more on this.
And on
this: early on December 5
Inner City Press asked the US
Attorney's Office press
department to make available
its exhibits in this case, and
in the completed OneCoin
/ US v. Mark Scott trial, as
they have in other Mafia,
rapper and other cases. At day's
end, no exhibits, not even a
response. We'll have much more
on this.
An
issue is the use of a rap or
hip-hop song as evidence.
Arius Hopkins' lawyer Glenn A.
Garber had asked that
prospective jurors be asked if
they were familiar with "the
genre of music called gansta
rap."
On December 4,
Assistant US Attorney Danielle
R. Sassoon argued that
questions about the song - a
copy of which does not appear
to have been uploaded by the
US Attorney's Office unlike
with GUMMO and Billy in the #6ix9ine
trial also known as US
v. Jones - should be
limited.
Such songs
and lyrics are also being used
by the US Attorney's Office in
another SDNY case Inner City
Press has covered,
US v. Darrell Lawrence, et
al., 19-cr-761 (Oetken).
It is an emerging and
accelerating First (and Fifth)
Amendment issue, leading Inner
City Press to raise folk-type
song SDNY questions.
Judge Kaplan reserved judgment
on what he will allow on
cross-examination. This case
is US v. Jones, et al.,17-cr-791
(Kaplan).
***
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