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By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon
Honduras - The Source - The Root - etc

SDNY COURTHOUSE, Dec 9 – 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.

 December 9 saw the testimony of the cooperator whom shooter Alexander Melendez recruited to make a call to police to sent them elsewhere in the neighborhood looking for a gun. He didn't make the call. But on March 9 he was played his jail house call with Arius Hopkins and said because it was recorded he spoke in "subliminals."

  Later came a medical examiner, though not the one who conducted the autopsy. The prosecution insisted that the defense say on the record they had waived their confrontation rights, something they declined to do beyond noting they had not objected to the witness. She said the wounds on Shaquille Malcolm's forehead were most probably gazing wounds.

  A women who found Shaquille Malcolm in his building's lobby said when she called 9-1-1 they told her to kick the body to see if it moved. She did not do so.

  The case is coming to a close, with the closing arguments seeming to come this week. AUSA Sassoon said she has a Second Circuit argument on December 11 - an appeal of a decision by Judge Kaplan as it happens - so that trial will start a bit late that day, and end early on December 12 to accommodate a juror. Inner City Press will continue to report on this case.

   Testifying against the two defendants has been cooperator Alexander Melendez. On December 4 he described using a .22 to shoot and kill Shaquille Malcolm, with orders and firepower given by the two men 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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