Defense rests in Patz retrial
THE DEFENSE rested earlier than anticipated in the Etan Patz murder retrial Friday — a surprise strategic move that put prosecutors on edge.
Lawyers for 55-year-old Pedro Hernandez chose not to call three witnesses used at his first trial last year to support their theory that convicted child molester Jose Ramos actually abducted and murdered the 6-year-old in 1979.
Two jail informants — who were housed with Ramos and allegedly got incriminating admissions from him — will not be called and neither will former federal prosecutor Stuart Grabois, who doggedly pursued a case against Ramos during his career.
The last witness the jury heard on the matter was retired FBI agent Mary Galligan, who was the first woman in charge of New York’s FBI bureau and headed the investigation into 9/11.
Galligan testified on Tuesday that she believed Ramos is responsible for Etan’s death.
Ramos, a serial pedophile, had a connection to the Patz family in the form of having dated a woman who sometimes worked for them.
Ramos allegedly told the feds a tale about picking up a child he called “Jimmy” on the same day Etan went missing, and sexually abusing him. At first, he denied that it could have been Etan — but when confronted with the fact there had been no reported sexual attacks on children that day, he changed his tune.
“He turned around at one point and said, ‘OK, it could have been Etan Patz,’” Galligan recalled.
Hernandez, who has been diagnosed with a psychiatric illness, confessed to the crime in 2012.
His attorneys Harvey Fishbein and Alice Fontier say it was a false confession — that his illness made him prone to delusions.
Prosecutors argued they were “ambushed” by the defense’s last-minute decision on Friday, saying they’d based their examination of Galligan on the belief that more would come out about Ramos.
The trial will resume Monday with arguments over the development, but the jury will not return until the day after. The prosecution is expected to call rebuttal witnesses to challenge testimony about Hernandez’s mental state.
A jury in the first trial was hung after 18 days of grueling deliberations and a mistrial was called in May 2015.
Hernandez, a former SoHo bodega clerk at a shop by Etan’s school bus stop, told investigators he lured the child to the basement of the store and choked him lifeless.