Witness details missing evidence
Abelove allegedly didn’t give grand jury several reports
The first witness for state prosecutors in the criminal trial of former Rensselaer County District Attorney Joel Abelove testified about the multitude of evidence that he said Abelove did not present to a 2016 county grand jury investigating the fatal shooting of a DWI suspect by a Troy police sergeant.
Antoine Karam, deputy chief investigator for the state attorney general’s office, recounted how he had obtained the sealed grand jury records from Abelove and reviewed its contents, finding no indication that the panel had been provided evidence from any firearms analysis, toxicology or autopsy reports, or a reconstruction of the shooting scene.
Karam’s testimony served as the foundation of the attorney general’s case accusing Abelove of official misconduct and later lying to the grand jury that investigated his handling of the case. Abelove hurriedly presented the case to the grand jury five days after the fatal shooting of Edson Thevenin by then-sgt. Randall French.
Although grand jury proceedings are secret, the extraordinary criminal trial enabled the attorney general’s office to share with jurors the full testimony of what that panel had been provided by Abelove before they cleared French of any wrongdoing in the shooting.
Abelove, who lost reelection and is now running a private law practice, faces two misdemeanor counts of official misconduct and a felony perjury count for allegedly lying to the grand jury investigating his handling of the fatal shooting. The perjury count relates to Abelove’s testimony about his office’s handling of another police shooting, in which he claimed a Troy police officer had been granted immunity from prosecution before testifying before a grand jury.
That statement was false. In the Thevenin shooting, Abelove had granted French immunity from prosecution before he testified, which means the panel could not have indicted the officer even if it believed he had acted improperly or lied about what happened.
As the jury listened Friday, assistant Attorney General Nick Viorst, acting chief of the attorney general’s special investigations unit, read Abelove’s questions and statements from the grand jury proceeding in the Thevenin shooting. Another assistant attorney general, Jennifer Sommers, read the testimony of the witnesses who had appeared before the grand jury in the fatal shooting.
The only physical evidence the grand jury saw were eight photographs of the shooting scene and a short video recorded by a passing tow truck driver. The rest of the case Abelove presented to the panel was testimony from French, the county medical examiner and six other city police officers.
Abelove told the grand jury he was going to call the tow truck operator, Phil Gross, but did not. Trevor Hannigan, Gross’s attorney, testified he was prepared to accompany Gross to the grand jury, but Abelove didn’t respond when Hannigan said his client was ready to appear.
Because Abelove did not have French waive immunity before testifying, it meant the panel could not have indicted the officer, raising questions about the legality of the proceeding. The grand jury voted unanimously to not indict French for second-degree murder — and 15-1 against indicting him for seconddegree manslaughter.
The official misconduct counts allege Abelove acted improperly as a prosecutor by not presenting evidence to the grand jury and for not having French waive his immunity from prosecution.
During the reading of Dr. Michael Sikirica’s testimony of the autopsy he performed on Thevenin and his fatal wounds, Gertha Depas, the mother of Thevenin, became emotional and left the courtroom. She returned later in the day to hear more testimony.
Sommers’ reading of French’s grand jury testimony indicated he claimed that he was pinned between his patrol car and Thevenin’s revving Honda Civic when he opened fire.
“I drew my gun. I thought I was going to die. I shot,” French testified, later adding he fired again after thinking: “This is how I die; on the Collar City Bridge.”
French died in April from symptoms of COVID-19.
A 69-page internal affairs report on the shooting, which was concealed from the public and from attorneys for Thevenin’s survivors, who have filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Troy, had recommended four disciplinary charges against French, including unjustifiable use of deadly force and providing false testimony.
The investigation was handled by former Troy police Capt. Joseph L. Centanni, whose internal report described French’s account of the shooting as “inconceivable,” and said the sergeant’s “empirically untruthful statements ... cause disquiet because they’re all interconnected as they relate to his justification surrounding the first two shots which occur prior to him becoming immobilized between the vehicles.”
Centanni was in charge of internal affairs for the department before taking command of the Detective Bureau. Centanni retired from the department earlier this year.
Columbia County Judge Jonathan D. Nichols is presiding in Abelove’s bench trial. Abelove, through his attorney William J. Dreyer, waived his right to a jury trial and opted for Nichols to decide the case. Nichols had previously thrown out the criminal charges against Abelove, but they were reinstated by an appellate court’s ruling.