Legal issue postpones sentencing of man who killed officer, 2 others
As word slowly rippled through the packed downtown courtroom Thursday, there were sobs, tears, and at least one audible gasp: The sentencing of the Boston man convicted of killing a Rochester police officer and two other men last year would not happen.
At least not on this day.
The Monroe County District Attorney’s Office revealed that the morning of the sentencing it received an email, sent the night before, from federal prosecutors that could impact the criminal case against Vickers.
As best can be gleaned from interviews with defense lawyers and prosecutors, the information, provided by a witness in an ongoing federal prosecution might not impact questions of whether Vickers committed the murders. Instead, what could be at issue is whether he knew he was firing upon police officers in an undercover van on July 21, 2022 when he fatally shot Anthony Mazurkiewicz and wounded the officer’s partner, Sino Seng.
Why is this an important question: The jury who convicted Vickers in October struggled with the question of whether he likely knew he was attacking police officers, as prosecutors claimed. Ultimately it concluded that he did, leading to his conviction of a criminal charge with a sentence of life without parole.
Shortly before the shooting on Bauman Street, Vickers was on a front porch of a nearby house with others suspected to be involved in a local marijuana trafficking ring. An ongoing war between this ring and a rival is thought to be at the core of the murder of Mazurkiewicz and two other men killed the night before, Richard Collinge and MyJel Rand.
One of the men on the porch may have provided information about Vickers’ intent before the shooting, said defense attorney Michael Schiano.
Federal prosecutors declined to comment about the information forwarded to the district attorney’s office. There are two federal prosecutions ongoing involving alleged members of the drug trafficking organizations.
According to District Attorney Sandra Doorley, her office Wednesday night received an email from the U.S. Attorney’s Office raising a legal issue needing to be explored. Federal prosecutors have a case ongoing with individuals who are alleged to have been in a marijuana trafficking ring with Vickers.
Prosecutors in the DA’s office first saw the email on Thursday, before the scheduled sentencing.
The email apparently provided little information about what the witness in the federal case may have specifically said. However, Doorley said, the wisest move was to postpone the sentencing.
“Obviously we want to protect the integrity of the conviction,” she said.
There is no allegation of misconduct by the DA’s office, and no claims that prosecutors wrongly withheld information in the Vickers’ prosecution, Schiano said.
In October, a jury convicted Vickers, a 22-year-old Boston man, deciding that last year he ambushed Mazurkiewicz and Seng as the two sat in the undercover police van during a plainclothes detail on Bauman Street.
The two officers were detailed to the neighborhood as part of a police “tactical unit” looking for a car linked to a spate of likely drug-related violence. The tactical unit is often tasked with responses to areas where violence has escalated.
Vickers was also convicted of the two murders committed the day before the Mazurkiewicz homicide.
On July 20, Collinge and Rand were fatally shot and another man injured on North Clinton Avenue. Vickers, Deadrick Fulwiley, and Raheim Robinson were accused of murder and attempted murder in those crimes. Vickers was tried separately. Fulwiley and Robinson are scheduled to be tried next year.
Police found Vickers hiding in a crawlspace in an abandoned home near where Mazurkiewicz was killed and Seng wounded. A 9 mm handgun showed traces of Vickers’ DNA and was linked to the violence through ballistics testing.
The gun was wrapped in clothing suspected to be Vickers.
Vickers was allegedly brought to Rochester by one faction in the battle over marijuana trafficking. The jury determined that Vickers likely knew there were police officers in the undercover van, a decision that made him eligible for the sentence of life without parole.
The jury agreed with prosecution arguments that Vickers engaged in a number of crimes that arose from the drug trafficking conflict, including arson.