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Wrongly Convicted Database Record
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Charge: |
Attempted Murder |
Sentence: |
8 to 16 years |
Years Imprisoned: |
7 |
Year Crime: |
1997 |
Year Convicted: |
1998 |
Year Cleared: |
2004 |
U.S. State or Country of Crime: |
New York |
County or Region of Crime: |
Bronx |
City of Crime: |
New York City |
Result: |
Judicially Exonerated Released |
Summary of Case: |
"Robert Maldonado and his codefendant Marcos Poventud (aka Michael Poventud) were wrongly convicted on April 29, 1998 of attempted murder in the second degree, attempted robbery in the first degree, assault in the first degree, and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, related to the attempted robbery of a livery driver in the Bronx, New York City in March 1997. Poventud's conviction by a jury was based on the eyewitness testimony of the victim. He was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison. The conviction of Poventud's co-defendant Robert Maldonado was overturned in 2002, and during his retrial in 2003 evidence was introduced that cast doubt on the reliability of the victim's identification of Poventud. That evidence had not been disclosed by the prosecution to Poventud during his trial in 1998. The jury acquitted Maldonado after his retrial. In December 2004 Poventud filed a motion for a new trial based on the prosecuton's Brady violation of failing to disclose the exculpatory evidence. On October 6, 2005 the New York Supreme Court vacated all of Poventud's convictions and ordered a new trial. The prosecution expressed the intention to appeal the ruling, and if they prevailed to proceed with his retrial. Desperate to get out of prison after almost 9 years in custody, in 2006 Poventud accepted a deal for his immediate release in exchange for his guilty plea to second-degree attempted robbery -- a crime for which he had not originally been charged -- and imposition of a one year sentence that he had served almost nine times over. Poventud filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of New York, the NYPD, and individuals involved in his prosecution, for the time he spent in prison for his vacated convictions which the State didn't appeal. Three years after his release a Bronx Asst. DA stated in a deposition related to his lawsuit that they did not intend to appeal the vacating of his convictions -- which means they were intending to dismiss the charges if the hadn't gamed Poventud into pleading guilty. Poventud's lawyer described the DA's tactic as a dirty "trick" to induce an innocent man into pleading guilty to a crime just to get out of prison. On December 17, 2015 New York City's Law Department announced that an agreement had been reached to settle Poventud's lawsuit for $2.75 million." |
Conviction Caused By: |
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Innocence Proved By: |
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Defendant Aided By: |
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Was Perpetrator Identified? |
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Age When Imprisoned: |
20 |
Age When Released: |
27 |
Sex: |
Male |
Skin/Ethnicity: |
Black |
Information Source 1: |
"New York City to Pay $2.75 Million in Wrongful-Conviction Settlement, By Benjamin Weiserdec (staff writer), The New York Times, December 17, 2015" |
Information Location 1: |
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/18/nyregion/new-york-city-to-pay-2-75-million-in-wrongful-conviction-settlement.html |
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Innocents Database Created and Maintained by Hans Sherrer innocents@forejustice.org