Grid-slay att’y: DA buried tape
A man facing retrial in the 2003 murder of a college football player at a Brooklyn house party is trying to get the case tossed, arguing that the prosecutor, who is now the star of a true-crime TV show, suppressed evidence that could have cleared him.
John Giuca says thenBrooklyn Assistant District Attorney Anna Nicolazzi deliberately buried an interview that exonerated him in the shooting death of New Jersey teen Mark Fisher.
Giuca’s lawyer, Mark Bederow, argues in court papers that jailhouse snitch Joseph Ingram told Nicolazzi in a taped 2005 conversation that Giuca was innocent.
Giuca’s convicted co-defendant, Antonio Russo, “told me he left the party with [Fisher],” documents quote Ingram as saying. “[Russo] said he had the intention of robbing [Fisher] . . . and . . . he ended up shooting him,” Ingram, who died in 2006, allegedly said. Russo recently confessed to the shooting.
Giuca served more than 10 years for the slaying before an appeals court overturned his 2005 conviction in February. He remains jailed, pending retrial.
“There is no excuse for the prosecution’s 13-year failure to disclose what Nicolazzi clearly knew was exculpatory evidence,” the motion reads.
A spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney said, “We . . . are investigating to determine whether that evidence had been turned over.”
Nicolazzi, who now stars on the Investigation Discovery show “True Conviction,” did not return a message seeking comment.