“Guilty.”
“How say you as to the fourteenth count under Indictment 10614 of 1993 charging the defendant Daniel Rincon with the crime of murder in the second degree, guilty or not guilty?”
“Guilty.”
The verdict was an overwhelming victory for the prosecution. All but two counts resulted in convictions, and the two that didn’t—the Rooftop murder and Michael Cruz’s Brooklyn shooting—hung at 11–1 for. From all the security in the courtroom—there must have been thirty white-shirted officers milling about the well—Brownell had guessed the verdict. There are few secrets at 100 Centre Street. But as the clerk scrolled down the list of counts, and the jury foreperson chanted guilty 10, 15, 20, 27 times, all three prosecutors experienced an overpowering sense of vindication.
EPILOGUE
ON JUNE 27, the parties to the Cowboy trial met one final time in Snyder’s packed courtroom for sentencing. Several defendants spoke first, most of them protesting their innocence. One, Rennie Harris, showed remorse, apologizing to Anthony Green’s parents for his part in the Quad. Finally, after the prosecutors voiced their sentencing recommendations, Judge Snyder delivered her judgment: “You have no values,” she said, glaring at the defendants who had mocked her throughout the trial. “You have no morality. You have no respect for the law. Your lives were simple. You had only one law. If someone got in your way, kill them. Well, I intend to make the rest of your lives very simple.
“A tired neighborhood was almost brought to its knees in fear and hopelessness thanks to your reign of terror, and we can only count the visible victims. Who knows how many others exist? You thought you were above the law. You think you’re above the law. No wonder. You were let out on bail all the time in the past, and you committed more crimes, and you were still let out on bail. You scared the witnesses off. You laughed in the faces of the police and the criminal justice system. No one could touch you. You could get away with virtually everything.
“But now we know this: you are not above the law. Because the witnesses in this case did their job. They came forward and spoke truthfully despite threats, intimidation, and shootings. The police did their job, especially Detective Mark Tebbens, bravely and courageously and with absolute perseverance, because it took years. The District Attorney’s offices of New York County, the Bronx, and Brooklyn came together to do their job. And the men and the women on the jury did their job.
“Now I have to do my job. Let this sentence be a measure to every other vicious and violent drug gang terrorizing our streets. You will be brought to justice and you will be removed from society forever. This is my job and that is what I am going to do here.”
Surrounded by double rows of police, already shackled hand and foot, the nine Cowboy defendants heard their sentences read out in a silence broken only by the anguished cries of their families and girlfriends. Linwood Collins received 20 years; Rennie Harris, 481/3 years; Tezo, 50 years; Victor Mercedes, 662/3 years; Pasqualito, 1162/3 years; Platano, 1331/3 years; Stanley Tukes, 1331/3 years; Daniel Gonzalez, 1412/3 years; Fat Danny, 1581/3 years.
No doubt, the steep sentences sent a message to other gangs on the street. It clearly sent a message to the remaining defendants in the case, all of whom pled to state time before the end of the year.
Nor did HIU rest on its laurels. In the four years following the Cowboy verdict, the unit successfully prosecuted more than twenty new cases, including major initiatives in Manhattan Valley, the Lower East Side, central Harlem, and midtown. During that time, HIU locked up over 500 gang members and solved more than 50 homicides.
Meanwhile, New York City’s crime rate plummeted to levels not seen since the early 1960s. There’s been much debate over the reasons for the decline. Certainly, the city’s administration deserves the lion’s share of the credit. Between January 1994, when Rudolph Giuliani became mayor, and April 1996, when his Police Commissioner, William Bratton, resigned, New York’s homicide rate declined 50 percent, a figure that far exceeded the national average, as well as expectations based on non-police-related phenomena (i.e., demographic changes, the peaking of the crack epidemic, and the organization of the crack trade). But reductions in Manhattan’s murder rate began earlier than 1994 and were greater than in other boroughs, a difference that Morgenthau, writing in a Times op-ed piece, attributed in large part to HIU.
Precinct statistics yield an even clearer example of the unit’s effectiveness. After the Cowboy takedown in September 1993, the murder rate in the Four-Oh, the gang’s base of operations, dropped sharply, far more than the citywide average. There was an even more dramatic contraction in Manhattan Valley after an HIU initiative there the following year. A small Hispanic neighborhood nestled between Columbia University and the Upper West Side, the Valley had become a war zone in the early 1990s. At least three major crack gangs were vying for supremacy and there were shootings virtually every week. In 1993 alone, there were twenty-six drug-related homicides in the tiny precinct, including the murders of two innocent bystanders. The police had not only lost control of the streets but were themselves targets of the mindless violence. In early 1994, HIU launched a campaign against the gangs. By the year’s end, the number of murders had dropped to twelve, and in 1995, after HIU took out its third gang, the Natural Born Killers, there was only one gang-related homicide.
Yet despite its proven success, HIU has not been replicated by local New York law enforcement, although its initiatives have been adopted in other cities around the world. Both Don Hill and Lori Grifa lobbied their offices to set up HIU-style units in the wake of the Cowboy trial—without success. Moreover, HIU’s experiment in sweeping citywide investigations ended with the Cowboys.
Their official statements notwithstanding, the Bronx was not happy with Manhattan’s handling of the case. Not only did they resent the way Ryan and Rather dealt with Fat Danny’s arrest, but they took exception to the stipulations in Lenny’s plea agreement, which they felt—mistakenly, as it turned out—jeopardized convictions in another Bronx case. And even though the HIU-led investigation scuttled the Cowboys—arguably the Bronx’s most violent and resilient street gang—it failed to shed much luster on the Bronx DA’s office. The Cowboys were tried in Manhattan, the case press conferences took place in Morgenthau’s office, and the papers and local news reports gave the lion’s share of the credit for the gang’s demise to HIU and Morgenthau.
Once again, the twin issues of turf and credit—law enforcement’s Scylla and Charybdis—raised their monstrous heads, effectively barring future cooperation between Manhattan and the Bronx. They also took their toll on the professional lives of the individuals involved. Don Hill’s career would suffer from his close association with the case. Never part of the Bronx’s inner circle, Hill found himself even more estranged after his two-year sojourn in Manhattan; and despite his tilts with Ryan and Rather, he was perceived by his bosses as having divided loyalties. On his return to the Bronx, his proposal to set up a gang unit was summarily turned down, and feeling increasingly isolated from the centers of power, he resigned from the Bronx in March 1997 to start his own practice—a small-town law office near his home in Darien, Connecticut.
Back in Brooklyn, Lori Grifa did get permission to try gang cases and managed to run a successful investigation against a heroin outfit in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. But she received no support—not one ADA or investigator was assigned to help her—and she left her office in 1996 to join the litigation department of a New Jersey-based real estate firm.
Mark Tebbens’ career may have taken the biggest hit. Throughout the investigation, he’d batted back and forth between postings—the Four-Oh squad, HIDTA, the Bronx DA’s squad, the Major Case squad—landing finally at HIU, where he was viewed as an orphan, an NYPD detective without an NYPD boss or protector. Nor was he surprised by his predicament. The day Tebbens transferred to HIU to work full-time on the Cowboys, Quinn had warned him: “This is a once-in-a-career type of case. But it will cause you problems.
The Department won’t like it, and you will not get promoted.”
Quinn had been right. Though several detectives peripherally associated with the investigation were promoted to grade, Tebbens, the acknowledged hero of the case, was not. But he had no regrets. He’d achieved what he’d set out to do almost six years before the verdict—clean the Cowboys off Beekman Avenue—and watching the defendants as the verdict was read, seeing the surprise on their faces, and the recognition, as they bowed their heads, that this was finally it, he’d felt it was worth it. Tebbens stayed on at HIU for another eighteen months, and worked on the Manhattan Valley investigation before transferring to the Cold Case squad. He remains a detective third grade, the lowest rank in the division.
Others fared better in the aftermath of the case. Dan Rather continues to head the Firearms Trafficking Unit at the Manhattan DA’s office, where Nancy Ryan is beginning her fourteenth year as chief of the Trial Division.
Barbara Jones was appointed to the federal bench in 1998.
Robert Morgenthau was elected to his sixth term as New York County’s DA in 1997.
Leslie Crocker Snyder remains a state Supreme Court judge, and is often mentioned as a possible successor to Morgenthau.
Fernando Camacho retired to private practice in 1995 and was appointed Criminal Court judge in 1999.
Garry Dugan, who joined HIU midway through the case, considers the Cowboy investigation to be the capstone of his twenty-five-year career on the force. For once it seemed that every shard of evidence he’d dug up—license plate numbers, phone records, rap sheets, informant interviews—had proved useful. The trial alone had closed out ten homicides. Lenny and Nelson had pled to another four. And HIU’s investigation had enabled police to solve an additional twenty-three murders. Dugan remains a senior investigator with HIU.
Dan Brownell also regards the Cowboy case as the peak of his career as a prosecutor. Though he was made deputy chief of HIU shortly after the Cowboy verdict in 1995, and has tried numerous homicides since then, he’s never had another case with the scope and importance of the Cowboys.
Terry Quinn and Walter Arsenault recall the Cowboy case with mixed emotions. Its investigation and prosecution defined HIU’s approach to future cases, and its impact on the street and in law enforcement circles established HIU as arguably the world’s preeminent gang unit. But it also cost them their mentor and friend, Nancy Ryan. Ryan’s Asian Gang unit had provided the model for HIU, and she had built the unit into a powerful force, one capable of taking on the Cowboys in the first place. Moreover, she had brought Arsenault to HIU and promoted him to be its chief.
Quinn, Arsenault, and Brownell continue to make cases at HIU.
Meanwhile, the Cowboy case has spawned several major investigations. In December 1994, the Feds arrested Jose Reyes, a.k.a. El Feo, Lenny’s erstwhile ally and supplier. Using Lenny as their star witness, prosecutors from New York’s Southern District convicted Reyes on racketeering charges in July 1996, and he was sentenced to life without parole. Raymond Polanco, the Cowboys’ gun supplier, was also convicted of racketeering and murder charges by U.S. Attorneys from the city’s Eastern District, and sentenced to life in April 1997. Both Garry Dugan and Lenny testified for the prosecution. Then, in June 1997, Dominican police arrested Freddy Krueger in his island hideout and returned him to the United States, where he pled guilty to fourteen murders and was sentenced to 50 years in prison. HIU played a pivotal role in all three prosecutions.
Finally, on March 2, 1999, Lenny and Nelson themselves appeared before Leslie Crocker Snyder for sentencing. Apart from HIU and David Cargill’s parents, the courtroom was empty of spectators. Reporters, had they known about them, would have considered the proceedings routine. Lenny’s and Nelson’s plea agreements—25 years to life and 22 years to life, respectively—had been public information since the trial four years ago. Besides, the media were focused on the city’s plummeting crime rate. The Cowboys were old news.
But for the DAs and detectives in attendance, the event was far from ordinary. Before Snyder pronounced sentencing, Anne Cargill addressed the court, reading into the record a simple but eloquent account of her family’s ordeal. “We came to this country thirty-five years ago with twenty-five dollars and two children under two,” she said. “And we had all the hopes of any immigrants. And many of our dreams have come true.
“But on that day, May 19, 1991—I will never forget it—our only son didn’t come home.
“And these things, I just didn’t believe these things happen to people like us. We obeyed the laws, did what we were supposed to do. All our children have college degrees. And what more could we do?”
Anne Cargill talked about her son, his goodness and his foibles, and the devastation his murder wreaked upon his sisters, his father, and herself. “It’s not so violently painful now,” she said. “But the first two years, I was an absolute basket case. There wasn’t a day I didn’t cry my heart out.”
And the pain never went away completely. “I had a terrible time a year ago when I went to his best friend’s wedding and his best friend danced with his mom. I’ll never get to do this. I’ll never get to know who my son would have married. I’ll never get to see my grandchildren by him.
“And because of one senseless act.”
Anne Cargill said she wanted Lenny to know what he had done to her and her family, but there was no rancor in her voice. “We have gone on, thank God,” she told the court. “We now have eleven grandchildren. We have done things the right way … And the United States has been good to us. But I’m awfully glad that people like Nelson and Lenny are not going to be roaming our streets anymore.”
A few minutes later, Nelson stood at the defendants’ table and apologized for himself and his brother. “You know,” he said, “I was the first one to find this jungle out there, the Bronx, dragging my brother with me, put him through a lot of things that, you know, that an older brother should know [better].”
He glanced back to the Cargills. “I’m sorry to everybody there for the casualty, for this mindless war, trying to make all the money we could, all the wrong ways, all the wrong reasons,” he told them.
He apologized, too, to his co-defendants. “We plucked guys out of school and showed them money, and out of churches, just to be around.
“It’s sad, you know, to have to be before you right now, say these things there,” he finished. “My family had a lot of promise for me and I just let them down, let everybody down. Sorry.”
Sitting at the prosecutors’ table, Dan Brownell was surprised by Nelson’s speech; he had not tried to make excuses or shift the blame. But he was even more surprised when moments later Lenny rose to make amends. Lenny wasn’t expected to speak. “I had all the opportunity in the world to take advantage in this great country, and I just couldn’t,” the former gang leader said in a choked voice. “Can’t express, but I’m sorry to cause the family [pain]. Hope everybody in the courtroom can forgive me, find it in their heart to forgive me. Sorry.”
And so the Cowboy saga ended, not with a bang, but with a whimper. Watching from the jury box, Walter Arsenault felt a sense of closure—not only of the case but of an era. “The Cowboys were the last of the big shoot-’em-up gangs,” he said afterward outside the courtroom. “When Lenny and Nelson went away, it put a punctuation point on the end of the Wild West syndrome in New York City.”
But it was Lori Grifa who had perhaps best captured what the Cowboy case meant. Nearly seven years earlier, on a sunny afternoon shortly after the takedown in September 1993, she’d driven up to Beekman Avenue with Mark Tebbens to view the block firsthand. The alleyway where four men and women had died in a hail of Cowboy bullets was vacant when they got there. So was the one adjoining No. 348, where tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of drugs changed hands every day. Only a blister of rock poking through the cement and a red paint stain evoked the carnage that once emanated from the Hole.
Two hundred yards south, crack dealers still hawked
their goods in the doorways along 141st Street. But on Beekman Avenue, the only sounds came from children playing in the street. Grifa had gone up to the roof of No. 348, where lookouts once scouted for police. It was a glorious fall day, the kind you sometimes get in New York when the seasons change, the air clear and fresh, yet warm against the skin. She watched for a moment or two while two girls drew a hopscotch grid on the pavement six stories down, and farther up the block, a group of youngsters tossed a football around. She reflected that she would never again do anything that would mean as much as what she was doing then, that at 31 her best work was behind her.
But that thought passed quickly. She descended to the street, as the people in the neighborhood gathered around Tebbens, touching him like he was some kind of miracle worker, a healer or a saint. It was a heartening image—the tall, muscular detective in the foreground, and behind him children running pass patterns on the street that for years had seen only crack vials and bullets. And it was an image not lost on the residents. A local man, a super who’d serviced several Cowboy strongholds, walked up to Tebbens and Grifa and shook each of their hands. “That’s the first time I’ve seen children playing here in five years,” he said.
FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, JUNE 2002
Copyright © 2000 by Michael Stone
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2000.
Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Doubleday edition as follows:
Gangbusters: How a Street-Tough Elite Homicide Unit Took Down New York’s Most Dangerous Gang Page 33
