However, under Karp’s deliberate questioning, Lydia stayed focused on her testimony. First she recounted how he showed up at the Cassinos’ apartment after the Yancy-Jenkins murders wearing the shirt, which he then gave to Vinnie.
“I asked him, ‘What’s on your pants? ’cause it looked like dried blood to me,” she testified. “And he said I was crazy. But he went to the bathroom and washed it off.”
Kadyrov returned to buy more meth a few days later, she said, and pointed to a front-page headline about the Columbia U Slasher. “He said, ‘That’s me.’ My husband didn’t believe him at first. But Kadyrov knew too much. He said he only planned to rape and rob that girl and had tied her up with duct tape and cut her clothes off with a knife when another woman-he called her ‘the older bitch’-surprised him.”
“Did he describe the attacks on Beth Jenkins and Olivia Yancy?” Karp had asked.
“Yeah, he said he stabbed the second woman four or five times,” Lydia responded. “Then he said he told the younger woman, Olivia, I guess, that if she didn’t shut up-he said she was crying and scared because she watched him kill the second gal-he was going to cut her fucking head off… His shirt was all bloody so he took it off and got that blue silk shirt he gave to Vinnie.”
Like fitting the pieces of a puzzle together, Lydia’s recollections backed up previous testimony: that of the crime scene technicians who described how Olivia Yancy’s body had been bound and her clothes removed with a sharp instrument-evidence that had been withheld from the public-and AME Manning’s matter-of-fact description of the attacks, from the number of times Beth Jenkins was stabbed to the rape and near decapitation of Olivia Yancy.
Kadyrov kept his head down as Lydia quoted him talking about the rape, saying how he’d “used her good.” But he’d felt the eyes of the jurors burning into him.
Karp was relentless as he asked Lydia to recall the time Kadyrov went to the Cassinos’ apartment in the spring. The judge had ruled that Karp could not ask Lydia questions that would lead her to talking about the murder of Dolores Atkins in the Bronx. However, the prosecutor got her to describe how Kadyrov had shown up that previous spring with a large bruise on the side of his face-from that bitch in the park he’d tried to rape-and then threatened the Cassinos if they told anyone that he’d admitted to the Yancy-Jenkins murders.
Although reeling like a boxer who had barely stayed on his feet until the bell ended a brutal round, Kadyrov thought he might have survived Lydia’s testimony and that of the other witnesses. However, the knockout punches were delivered when Karp introduced into evidence the recordings Vinnie Cassino had made.
First, Karp played the recording from the previous spring, in which the jury heard the conversation just as Lydia Cassino had described it. “Whether I did or didn’t, I think both of you should watch your fucking mouths. And remember, snitches end up in ditches.”
More damning still was Vinnie Cassino speaking from beyond death’s door against the man who killed him. Kadyrov cringed as he heard himself snarl, “I can do anything I want. And when your old lady gets back, I’m going to rape the shit out of her, if I can stomach touching that ugly bitch. Then I’m going to cut her up real slow… Here’s the deal, old man. Tell me where the blue shirt is and I’ll make it quick for your bitch.”
“Don’t know… any damn blue shirt,” Cassino gasped on the recording. There was a grunt of pain, then Kadyrov’s voice: “Sure you do, the shirt I took from the apartment where I killed them two bitches in Manhattan, same way I’m gonna do to that sooka wife of yours.”
Kadyrov knew he was already down for the count when Karp threw one more punch by calling a language expert to the stand. Having already established that Kadyrov was originally from Chechnya, the relentless district attorney asked the witness if sooka meant anything in Chechen.
“Yes, it means ‘whore,’” the expert replied.
The fight was over before my damn attorneys said a word, Kadyrov thought while the jurors settled themselves and turned expectantly toward Judge Dermondy as the court clerk took the jury’s verdict paperwork to the dais. Kadyrov leaned over in front of his attorney, Mavis Huntley, who froze in fear, and motioned to Langton that he wanted to say something to her privately.
“I hate both of you,” Kadyrov hissed without changing his woeful facial expression. “I would kill you if I could.”
Huntley whimpered slightly. But Langton blinked twice, then shrugged and leaned back in her chair with her half smile still glued to her face. “Don’t think there’s going to be much chance of that, my friend,” she said under her breath. “Though I’m still going to try to save your miserable life.”
Not if the penalty phase goes as well as your defense strategy, Kadyrov thought as he leaned back and turned to look at the judge.
Even if Karp’s barrage had not been enough to have the fight stopped on a technical knockout, his defense attorneys’ counterpunches had been weak at best. Of course it was beyond Kadyrov’s ego to acknowledge that they had precious little to work with.
Langton’s strategy had been based on two possibilities: The first was that Felix Acevedo was the real, and confessed, killer. The second was that if Acevedo wasn’t the real killer, the district attorney was running around “willy-nilly” accusing innocent men and “changing his mind on a whim.”
Langton had started by calling Felix Acevedo to the stand and then going over his confession to Graziani, followed by the statement he’d given the prosecutor Danielle Cohn, who Kadyrov knew was the pretty brunette sitting behind the prosecution table. She looks like my sister, he thought absently as he glanced over at her.
Of course, his attorney’s direct examination of Acevedo concentrated on those aspects that made Felix look guilty: the confessions to the murders in Manhattan and the Bronx; the admission that he’d assaulted the woman in Mullayly Park, from whom he’d allegedly received the bruise shown in his booking photograph; and, of course, the ring he claimed to have taken from Olivia Yancy.
Langton had also noted the “nearly identical” answers Acevedo had given in his confession and the statement given to Cohn. “And that’s because, Mr. Acevedo,” the attorney said, raising her voice as she spoke to the obviously frightened young man on the witness stand, “it’s the truth, isn’t it? You could repeat it word-for-word because you didn’t have to make anything up. Isn’t that true, Mr. Acevedo?”
“Yes,” Acevedo had replied as the defense attorney smiled at the jury triumphantly.
The victory was short-lived. It took much less time for Karp to take the confessions apart than it had to read them into the record. He started by getting Acevedo to recite from parts of the confession where he told Graziani he bought the ring from a young man named Al at Mullayly Park.
“Why did you eventually tell Detective Graziani that you took it from Olivia Yancy?” Karp asked.
“Because Detective Graziani told me I did,” Acevedo said, hanging his head, “and I wanted to go home.”
“Did you take the ring from Olivia Yancy?”
Acevedo shook his head. “I bought it from Al.”
Karp had grimaced and raised his voice as he’d stalked up to the witness stand, holding up the plastic bag containing a small diamond engagement ring. “Come on, Felix! You took the ring from Olivia Yancy!” the prosecutor thundered. “You admitted it to Detective Graziani! You did take the ring from Olivia, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I took it,” Acevedo cried out. It might have seemed like theatrics, but even Kadyrov noted the genuine terror in the young man’s voice and eyes.
Karp had then softened his voice and smiled. “It’s okay, Felix,” he said. “Sorry I yelled. Just tell the truth. Did you take this, or any other ring, from Olivia Yancy?”
“No.”
“Did you kill Olivia Yancy?”
“No.”
“Did you kill Beth Jenkins?”
“No.”
“Did you, in fact, kill anyone? Or assault anyone?”
“No.”
“Then why did you tell Detective Graziani and Miss Cohn, sitting behind the prosecution table there, that you did?”
“Because I wanted to go home,” Acevedo said, wagging his head sadly back and forth.
Karp dissected and dismissed the rest of Acevedo’s false confession in much the same fashion. At the prosecutor’s direction, Acevedo would read his first honest responses to the detective’s questions. Then Karp would ask, “Why did you change your answer if it wasn’t true?”
Then Acevedo would answer in one of two ways: “Because Detective Graziani wanted me to” or “I wanted to go home.” Karp would follow this by again angrily accusing Acevedo of not telling the truth, at which point the young man would again admit to crimes he didn’t commit.
At one point in his cross-examination of Acevedo, Karp suddenly asked if anyone in the gallery had a book they’d brought for reading when court wasn’t in session. After overruling the defense objection, Judge Dermondy allowed him to accept a book from a member of the audience.
As Karp walked over to stand in front of Acevedo, he smiled, shook his head, and laughed inwardly when he looked at the title, Rush to Judgment by Mark Lane. So much for spontaneous courtroom drama, he thought. He then read a page aloud from the book.
Karp looked up and held the front of the book out so the witness could see it. “Mr. Acevedo, have you ever seen this book before?”
Acevedo hesitated as if he wasn’t sure of the answer he was expected to give. But then he replied, “No.”
“Have you ever read it?”
Acevedo shook his head. “No. I don’t like to read. The words get jumbled up.”
“Your Honor, for demonstration purposes I ask that this book be deemed People’s twenty-eight for identification,” Karp said. He then walked over to the jury box and handed the still-open book to the jury foreman before turning back to the witness stand. “Mr. Acevedo, would you please repeat what you just heard me read from this book? And, Mr. Foreman, would you please follow along on page one fifty-three?”
Acevedo repeated the words; it was clear to everyone in the courtroom that he had it down. When he finished, the jury foreman looked surprised and nodded his head before handing the book to the juror next to him.
Meticulous as a surgeon, Karp cut away at the defense’s case. He asked Acevedo to read from the transcribed statement he gave to Detective Brock about how he received the bruise on his face from a backhand blow by his father. Then Karp called Marianne Tate to the stand as a rebuttal witness after first getting Dermondy to allow Kadyrov and Acevedo to be seated on either side of a court officer in a pew behind the defense table.
“Miss Tate, do you see, here in this courtroom, the man who attacked you?” Karp asked.
Tate looked out over the gallery and then fixed her gaze on Kadyrov. “That’s him,” she said, pointing to the defendant.
“You’re sure?” Karp asked. “The man sitting in the second row with the green shirt?”
The woman nodded. “I’m positive.”
“Your Honor, the record should reflect that the witness has identified the defendant,” Karp said. “Now, Miss Tate, what if I told you that you originally identified the young man in the blue shirt sitting to his right as your attacker?”
“I recognize him, too, but from the police station. I thought he might be the one back then,” she admitted. “But now that I can see them both clearly, I am sure it’s the other man.”
Karp continued. “Miss Tate, could you demonstrate how you fended your attacker off?”
With Karp describing the action for the court stenographer, Tate showed the jury how she used her elbow to strike the “assailant” behind her. “And you struck him hard?” the prosecutor asked.
“Hard enough for him to lose his grip and let me go,” she answered.
Karp dismissed Tate and then re-called the assistant medical examiner, Gail Manning, to the stand. She was shown a blowup of Acevedo’s booking photograph depicting the bruise on his face.
Taking the photograph over to the jury, Karp then said, “Ms. Manning, there has been testimony that the young man in that photograph received the bruise on his face from an elbow strike. Based on your observation of that photograph, would you agree that the bruise was the result of such a blow?”
Manning shook her head. “No. In my opinion, the bruising was not caused by an elbow.”
“Please explain,” Karp said.
“If the bruising had been caused by an elbow, I would expect to see one larger point of impact,” she said, turning to address the jurors. “As you can see in the photograph, although there is a general area of swelling and discoloration, there are three small, dark purple spots within the general area, and, somewhat fainter, a fourth. Note they are generally aligned vertically on the side of this man’s face.”
“Do you have an opinion regarding what sort of blow would have caused that particular pattern?” Karp asked.
“Yes, based on the pattern, I would say that the bruise was caused by knuckles, as would be expected from a backhand blow,” Manning answered.
Karp had then called Jesus Guerrero to the stand to admit that he stole a purse containing a small diamond engagement ring. “Whose purse did you take?” Karp asked.
Guerrero shrugged. “I don’t know her, but I remember her last name was Lopez because that’s my mom’s maiden name.”
“What did you do with the ring?” Karp asked.
“I sold it to Felix in Mullayly Park,” Guerrero said.
“Did you tell Felix your correct name?”
“No. I told him my name was Al because that was the name on the inside of the ring.”
Kadyrov didn’t even bother to look up anymore when Karp called Amy Lopez to the stand to describe how she’d been robbed. “Can you identify this ring?” he asked, handing her the plastic bag.
Lopez looked at it for a moment before gazing back up at him with tears in her eyes and a smile on her face. “Yes, this is my engagement ring,” she said. “Can I take it home now?”
The closing summations were more of a victory lap for Karp. Langton insisted that the defense’s case was enough to “throw a cloud of reasonable doubt” over Kadyrov’s guilt based on the confessions and subsequent indictment of Acevedo.
However, Karp had shrugged off Acevedo’s confession as “a pack of lies, manipulated out of a young man who will, as you heard, admit to anything to avoid confrontation and to escape an uncomfortable situation.
“Acevedo’s indictment,” he said, “was a mistake that never should have happened. Because of a failure in my office to adhere to good practices an innocent man was accused of a heinous crime and deprived of his freedom. For that, I am truly sorry.
“However, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what matters here isn’t whether a mistake was made regarding Felix Acevedo,” Karp had said in conclusion. “The only thing that matters here is that the evidence against Ahmed Kadyrov is overwhelming. There is no cloud of reasonable doubt. There is no doubt at all. He is…”
“… guilty of the murder of Olivia Yancy,” Judge Dermondy read to the court, “and guilty of the murder of Beth Jenkins.”
27
Karp had seen to it that Felix Acevedo was released from the Tombs as soon as Kadyrov was arrested. Sam Hartsfield had then announced that the charges against Acevedo in the Bronx were “without merit” and dropped.
Even so, Karp had expected Acevedo and his family to react angrily, even file a civil lawsuit, which Felix’s father, through a well-known “celebrity” attorney, had vociferously threatened. But the lawsuit never materialized.
Instead, Karp one day received an unexpected visit from Amelia Acevedo, who thanked him for looking more closely at the accusations against her son. “I know it hasn’t been easy,” she said, referring in part to the media storm that, as expected, had followed, even though it was much less than Murrow had originally feared. There were a few editorials questioning “what’s going o
n over at the Manhattan DAO” and a prominent defense attorney railing on television that “never again” would the public be able to trust a confession. However, the arrest of Kadyrov and the death of Graziani-with the ensuing “cop kills brother cop” expose by Stupenagel-had quickly distracted the pundits and press corps.
Amelia said she was having a much harder time forgiving the police detective who’d nearly cost her son his freedom, if not his life. “I know he is dead and in God’s hands now, and as a Christian I’m supposed to forgive him,” she said. “But what he did seems even more evil because he was a policeman.”
Karp still wondered about Graziani. There was no question of his guilt both in trying to frame Acevedo as well as in the murder of Brock. Not only had Marlene and Stupenagel recorded him at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, but ballistics had matched the bullets found in Brock’s head to the gun Graziani had with him at Riverside Park. But what could have pushed him that far over the line?
According to Fulton, who’d talked with Sergeant Jon Marks at the Four-Eight Precinct in the Bronx, it was common knowledge in the detective squad room that Graziani had been unhappy with his transfer from Manhattan. Karp suspected that the detective had not started off intending to dishonor his gold shield. Graziani probably initially believed that he’d caught the killer and had fudged on the confessions, thinking he could make it stick later. Then when the case started to fall apart-beginning with Dale Yancy saying the ring didn’t match-he’d panicked and pretty soon found himself too far down the road to turn back, including killing another detective.
Even if the Manhattan case against Kadyrov had inexplicably imploded, the Bronx DA would have had a hold on him for the murders of Dolores Atkins, Detective Brock, and Vinnie Cassino, the latter based on the same recording that Karp had used during the trial with Kadyrov boasting he’d taken the blue silk shirt from the apartment where he’d “killed them two bitches in Manhattan.”
The Manhattan case had, of course, not imploded. By the defense attorneys’ and their clients’ faces after final summations in the guilt phase, Karp thought the metaphor of a lopsided heavyweight fight may have occurred to them. The only difference was that in a prizefight, the referee inside the ring would have probably stopped it. But Karp had kept raining blows, right down to connecting Kadyrov’s Chechen childhood to the things he said to women he attacked.
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