5 Jailed in ’95 Killing of Cabby Didn’t Do It, U.S. Inquiry Says

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/03/nyregion/5-convicted-in-bronx-cabbys-1995-murder-are-innocent-us-says.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

By BENJAMIN WEISER and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Published: August 2, 2012

Amid a rash of murders of taxi drivers in New York City, the killing of Baithe Diop in 1995 still attracted attention. He was shot twice in his livery cab, left to die as his car rolled down a street in the Bronx, not stopping until it struck a trash hauling bin.

Six people were tried; five were ultimately convicted. An article in New York magazine that focused on the investigation carried the headline, “How to Solve a Murder.”

But now, 15 years after the criminal trials, federal authorities have concluded that all five of those now imprisoned for the murder were innocent of the crime.

The United States attorney’s office in Manhattan, which conducted an exhaustive review of the case, reported its findings in June to the Bronx district attorney’s office, which had prosecuted the defendants over the course of two trials and defended their convictions on appeal.

•••••

Three men — Devon Ayers, Michael Cosme and Carlos Perez — were convicted of the Diop murder (a fourth, Israel Vasquez, was acquitted); all four men were convicted in the Raymond killing. Jurors accepted the theory advanced by prosecutors and the police that Mr. Diop’s murder was part of an elaborate plot to distract the police from the intended crime: the theft of $50,000 worth of cocaine from a passenger in Mr. Diop’s car.

In a second trial that focused only on the Diop murder, two more defendants — Ms. Watkins and Eric Glisson — were convicted. The defendants all received long prison sentences.

•••••