Back on the job

Appeals case involves man in 2016 Crossgates gun incident

Prosecutor walks back into courtroom for first time after vicious attack.

On Jan. 8, Albany County prosecutor Vincent Stark was walking with a woman in Center Square when three muggers viciously attacked him and stole his wallet.

Beat with a skateboard, the 32-year-old assistant district attorney was left hospitalized with a fractured skull and other severe injuries.

Zamari Coffin, 17, is charged with felony assault and robbery for his alleged role in the attack. Schenectady County prosecutors are handling the case.

On Wednesday, Stark will make his first appearance in a courtroom since the attack when he argues before the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court’s Third Department in Albany.

Stark — a 2011 graduate of Notre Dame Law School who began working for District Attorney David Soares in 2013 — will make his case at the appellate argument of Tasheem Maeweather, the man charged with firing a gun in Crossgates Mall on Nov. 12, 2016.

Prosecutors said Maeweather, now 23, fired twice in the crowded mall after

a rival punched him in the face near the Apple store. They said Maeweather, a reputed member of an “uptown” Albany gang, opened fire at rivals from the Troy-based Young Gunnerz, or YG’Z gang, and their allies in a “downtown” Albany gang.

Gang members in the city’s uptown neighborhoods — Arbor Hill and West Hill — have long feuded with rivals in the South End and, in recent years, the YG’Z

gang in Troy.

In December 2016, now-state Supreme Court Justice Peter Lynch sentenced Maeweather to nine years in prison for violating his probation with his arrest.

A jury later convicted Maeweather of first-degree reckless endangerment. In June 2017, acting Supreme Court Justice Roger Mcdonough sentenced him to an additional 3½ years to seven years in prison for the conviction, which will run consecutive to the nine-year term.

The jury acquitted Maeweather of attempted murder, attempted

assault and weapon possession.

Veteran attorney Terence L. Kindlon will argue on behalf of Maeweather that the jury’s verdict on the reckless endangerment charge was “logically inconsistent” because there was insufficient evidence that Maeweather possessed a weapon that day.

The arguments will be heard by Presiding Justice Elizabeth Garry and justices Phillip Rumsey, John Egan, Sharon Aarons and Stanley Pritzker.