Suing Scarcella
Exonerated ‘killer’ out for justice
A man who spent 16 years in prison for murder in a case involving scandalscarred ex-NYPD Detective Louis Scarcella — before having the conviction overturned in 2016 — is now suing the former cop.
John Bunn filed a lawsuit in Brooklyn federal court this week against Scarcella, the detective’s former partner Stephen Chmil, the estate of a now-deceased cop who also worked Bunn’s case and the city.
Bunn’s is one of 14 cases worked by Scarcella from the 1980s and ’ 90s — occasionally with Chmil — that have been tossed because of “questionable tactics.”
Bunn says that in 1991, when he was 14, he was asleep in his family’s apartment at Brooklyn’s Kingsborough Houses when outside, a correction officer was killed and another, Robert Crosson, was wounded.
Bunn claims he was placed in a lineup by Scarcella and pointed out by Crosson, even though the wounded officer “did not get a good enough view of the perpetrators to make a reliable identification,” the lawsuit charges.
Bunn was convicted in 1991, primarily on the testimony of the wounded jailer, who, according to the suit, was coerced by the cops and may have been on drugs or “inebriated.”
He was convicted after a trial that lasted just over a day, despite no physical evidence linking him to the crime.
Bunn alleges that the city already knew cops were bending the rules to make murder busts when he was arrested and that the NYPD knew that detectives, including Scarcella and Chmil, were violating police procedures and making tainted arrests.
Bunn was paroled in 2009, and in 2016 burst into tears in court when told the guilty verdict had been overturned.
Court records show that at least two other men cleared of wrongdoing in Scarcella-involved cases have pending federal lawsuits against the ex-cop and the city.
Scarcella and Chmil did not return calls for comment.
The city’s Law Department declined to comment on the case.