The Law Offices of Thomas Hoffman
Retrial ordered for Kareem Bellamy after 13 years in prison
BY NICOLE BODE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Friday, June 27th 2008, 7:55 PM
Kareem Bellamy
A convicted
Queens
man fighting to prove his innocence for more than a decade was
redeemed Friday after a judge tossed out the guilty verdict, citing
a newly obtained taped confession by another man.
Queens Supreme Court
Justice Joel Blumenfeld ordered a retrial for
Kareem Bellamy,
40, of
Far Rockaway,
who has already served 13 years of his to 25-to-life sentence in the
1994 stabbing death of
James Abbott.
"He was innocent from the beginning," said Bellamy's father,
Eugene Howard,
60.
"That's what was tearing me apart," added Howard, who said his son
was watching "Soul Train" with him in their home when the stabbing
occurred.
The reversal follows a two-year investigation by Bellamy's new
lawyers, who accepted the case after getting one of the dozens of
packets the insistent father of three sent from the Shawangunk
prison.
Lawyers Darin McAtee and
Thomas Hoffman
obtained the smoking-gun confession earlier this year, in which
another man claims to have murdered Abbott for "messing around with
my girl."
"He wouldn't listen to me, so I had to do what I had to do. Stabbed
him about seven times or something like that," said the man - whose
identity is being withheld by the Daily News because he has not been
named a suspect - according to court documents.
The pair also unearthed holes in the original eyewitnesses'
testimony, along with the fact that some witnesses had rescinded
their testimony after the trial.
Bellamy's original case was documented by
Court TV.
"We felt that obviously the confession of the killer was very strong
evidence that should entitle Mr. Bellamy to a new trial," Hoffman
said yesterday.
Prosecutors have questioned the credibility of the confession tape,
and vowed yesterday to appeal the decision.
"We will thoroughly review the court's decision to determine what
further action is appropriate," Queens
District Attorney Richard Brown
said in a statement.
NEW YORK --
A
New York City
man who spent 14 years in prison has been released on bail after his
murder conviction was overturned, though he could still face a new
trial.
Kareem Bellamy
turned down a deal to plead guilty to manslaughter and be sentenced
to time served. He insisted that he didn't kill anyone.
Bellamy was released on $150,000 bail Thursday, posted by an
investigator who found a recording of a confession by another man.
The evidence helped overturn Bellamy's conviction.Queens
Supreme Court
Justice Joel Blumenfeld said it would be unfair to keep Bellamy in
jail while waiting prosecutors consider whether to pursue a new
trial.
Bellamy was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison in the 1994
killing of
James Abbott Jr.
He is now 41-years-old.
NEW-TRIAL HOPE FOR STAB CON
By IKIMULISA LIVINGSTON
OBJECTION! Kareem Bellamy has maintained his innocence since his
televised 1995 conviction.
June 23, 2008
A Queens man who has served 13 years behind bars for a murder he
says he didn't commit may get a second chance this week.
Supreme Court Justice Joel Blumenfeld is expected to rule on a
motion to vacate Kareem Bellamy's conviction and grant him a new
trial.
His high-powered lawyers, who have spent more than two years
re-investigating the case, say they've uncovered a recording of a
man recently confessing to the slaying.
Bellamy, who lived in Far Rockaway and was 28 at the time, was
convicted in 1995 of the murder of James Abbott Jr. and sentenced to
25 years to life.
The victim, known on the street as "Fudd," was stabbed seven times
in broad daylight on the corner of Beach 48th Street and Beach
Channel Drive on April 9, 1994.
In court, a wheelchair-bound witness identified Bellamy as the
killer.
"I didn't do this. I didn't do nothing to nobody," he screamed.
But his protests were in vain - the jury convicted him of murder.
Bellamy had to be carried out of the courtroom.
His trial was captured on video for Court TV.
Bellamy had copies made and sent them to lawyers, professing his
innocence. Most of the lawyers did not respond - but Darin McAtee
and Thomas Hoffman did.
McAtee felt drawn to the case after watching Bellamy get dragged out
of the courtroom kicking and screaming.
"It was heartbreaking," McAtee said.
"I told Kareem when I met him that I'd continue to be involved for
as long as I was convinced he was innocent," he said.
Hoffman was also convinced of Bellamy's innocence, ant the two
lawyers teamed up.
"There's no DNA evidence," Hoffman said. "There's no motive and no
connection or relationship between Kareem and the victim."
The man in the wheelchair has since recanted his testimony and
claims he had help from police when he picked Bellamy out of a
lineup.
"This audio tape has a man admitting to the stabbing," the lawyers
said, without elaborating further.
"We have solved the case," but Kareem is still in prison, Hoffman
said. "Sometimes the system breaks down, but it's the obligation of
the system to rectify itself."
I want retrial, not a deal, to prove my innocence, man says
BY OREN YANIV, NICOLE BODE and BILL HUTCHINSON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Friday, August 15th 2008, 12:52 AM
|
Rejecting a plea deal that would have ended his legal
nightmare, a Queens man jailed for 14 years is insisting
on a trial to prove he's innocent of murder - even at
the risk of landing back behind bars. |
|
Bellamy was released from prison Thursday after Queens Supreme Court
Justice Joel Blumenfeld granted him $150,000 bail.
"This moment right here is one of the happiest of my life," Bellamy
said, emerging from the back door of Queens Criminal Court.
"Words can't express how happy I am," said Bellamy, enjoying an
afternoon thundershower. "I can't believe I'm walking out of here
without an escort."
Bellamy smiled, showing off a gold-capped front tooth, and pumped
his fists in the air as he hugged his relatives and lawyer Thomas
Hoffman, who never wavered in their belief in his innocence.
From the start, Bellamy has insisted he had nothing to do with the
1994 fatal stabbing of James Abbott in Far Rockaway, Queens.
In a rare move, Bellamy's bail was posted by his pro bono
investigator, Joseph O'Brien, a former FBI agent and author of
bestselling mob book "Boss of Bosses."
"I felt strongly about it. He shouldn't have to spend another day in
jail," said O'Brien, who put up his retirement condo in upstate New
York to secure the bail. "It's the right thing to do."
Bellamy's dad, Howard, called the judge an "angel from heaven."
"I'm happy he had the heart and consideration to do this for my
son," he said.
About New York
After Years in Prison, Now a Break
Published: August 5, 2008
In May 1994, Kareem Bellamy stood outside his home on Beach Channel
Drive in Far Rockaway, Queens, drinking a beer. He was violating the
“open container” law. A detective car pulled up. Mr. Bellamy was
handcuffed.
Kareem Bellamy was 26 when he was arrested for murder. Now he is 41,
and his conviction has been vacated.
If that was a guess, it was a good one.
Six weeks earlier, a man named James Abbott had been stabbed to
death outside a C-Town supermarket a few blocks away. What led
detectives to Mr. Bellamy was a call from one of the supermarket
cashiers. She said that a man who had been in the store with the
victim just before the killing was, at that very moment, drinking a
beer on Beach Channel Drive.
No one ever said Mr. Bellamy had any motive for the killing, or any
real connection with the victim beyond his supposed presence in the
supermarket that day. The sole eyewitness to the stabbing was not
able to identify him with much certainty.
Even so, the words Mr. Bellamy uttered in the car effectively put
him in prison, a judge ruled, because they showed a jury his
“consciousness of guilt” and buttressed what was otherwise thin
evidence.
The jurors struggled with their deliberations for four days, then
returned to court — every man and woman weeping — and pronounced Mr.
Bellamy, then 26, guilty of murder. He was sentenced to 25 years to
life.
Many years ahead of schedule, Mr. Bellamy, now 41, is due back in
court on Thursday, no longer guilty of the murder. His conviction
was vacated on June 27 by Justice Joel L. Blumenfeld of State
Supreme Court in Queens. Mr. Bellamy will be seeking bail while
prosecutors decide whether to try him again.
That Mr. Bellamy will have a second chance to fight the murder
charge is due not to any particular diligence by law enforcement
authorities, but rather because the final link in a chain of lucky
breaks delivered him a secret tape recording. On it, a man says that
he and another man actually did the killing.
Over the last two decades, DNA tests have been a powerful force in
setting right many wrongs, but they were not a factor in Mr.
Bellamy’s case. In fact the vast majority of crimes do not involve
biological evidence, so DNA tests are of no use.
However Mr. Bellamy’s case turns out, the sequence of events that
brings him back to court this week shows how many pieces must fall
into place for most wrongly convicted people to get another
meaningful day in court.
Four years ago, Thomas Hoffman, a defense lawyer in Manhattan, got a
letter pleading for help from Mr. Bellamy.
He tossed it in the trash, thought better of it, then asked some of
the city’s big law firms to help for no fee. Darin P. McAtee of
Cravath, Swaine & Moore took on the case and hired private
investigators.
In January 2008, word spread around Far Rockaway that those
investigators, a retired homicide detective, Edward Hensen, and a
retired
F.B.I.
agent, Joseph O’Brien, were trying to scare up evidence that would
reopen Mr. Bellamy’s case. As they canvassed a housing project, a
man rode up on a bicycle. He knew Mr. Hensen from his years as a
detective. He said he had to talk to them.
Inside his home, he told the investigators that an old friend, Leon
Melvin, had been upset that his girlfriend had become too cozy with
Mr. Abbott. According to the informant, Mr. Melvin confided that he
and another man had stabbed Mr. Abbott.
In fact, those same two men had been implicated 14 years earlier by
another person — a woman who called the detective bureau to give
their names. At the trial, the detectives said they couldn’t find
the woman.
After the new informer surfaced this year, the private investigators
wired him with a hidden tape recorder. On Feb. 2, the informer met
with his jealous friend, and they spoke about a stabbing that took
place somewhere near 40th Street in Far Rockaway. A partial
transcript of the conversation was included in Judge Blumenfeld’s
ruling.
“You mean you told him to leave her alone, and he wouldn’t leave her
alone,” the informer says.
“Yeah, he wouldn’t listen to me, so I had to do what I had to do,”
Mr. Melvin said.
“So you stabbed him?” the informer asks.
“Yeah,” Mr. Melvin says.
“How many times you stabbed him?” the informer asks.
“Stabbed him about seven times or something like that,” Mr. Melvin
said.
No charges have been brought against Mr. Melvin. The district
attorney’s office argued that it wasn’t clear in the taped
conversation that they were referring to the murder of Mr. Abbott,
but Justice Blumenfeld dismissed that. The police files showed, he
said, that the killing of Mr. Abbott “was the only stabbing homicide
in the Beach 40s for many years.”
Mr. Bellamy says that he was guilty only of drinking a beer.
Conclude your press release with contact information.
insert content here