Alleged serial robber wants fed case tossed
An accused serial bank robber whose case lit up the debate around New York’s new bail laws is looking to get his federal case tossed because of zealous prosecutors making him the face of criminal justice reform.
Gerod Woodberry, 42, was arrested and released several times on state charges earlier this year for six separate robberies in Manhattan and Brooklyn before he was charged federally for a Brooklyn bank heist.
Woodberry’s lawyer argues that the feds made his case a referendum on New York’s controversial bail law, and that their statements about his case were unfair to his client.
“The fact that the statement used Mr. Woodberry’s arrest as a hook to make sweeping and pointed comments regarding the raging debate about bail reform is inherently prejudicial to Woodberry’s case,” wrote Woodberry’s lawyer, Samuel Jacobson, in court papers Tuesday.
When the feds announced the arrest of Woodberry, they released a statement saying, “No sound, rational and fair criminal justice system requires the pretrial release of criminal defendants who demonstrate such determination to continuously commit serious crimes.”
Prosecutors were rebuked In February by a judge in Woodberry’s case for their comments. The judge cited a niche law that precludes lawyers from giving their opinion on “pending or imminent criminal litigation with which they are associated.”
Woodberry was charged by the feds for three bank robberies and three attempted robberies. One of the robberies was a Chase Bank on Flatbush Ave. near Nevins St. in Downtown Brooklyn in early January — hours after he was released without bail by a state judge even though he was a suspect in a string of previous robberies.
His lawyer also moved Tuesday to have statements he made to law enforcement after his arrest thrown out, because officials continued to question him after he asked for a lawyer to be present twice.