The case crumbles
Teen can only watch as his battle against city starts to fall apart
A civil-rights case brought by a Bronx teen who said he was targeted by a rogue NYPD detective to take the fall for a 2016 robbery appears to be falling apart, as questions mount about the conduct of some members of his legal team.
Pedro Hernandez — who spent more than a year on Rikers Island on an unrelated gun charge because he was unable to pay $100,000 bail — and became a cause celebre for bail reform as a result — claimed in court papers last August that a supposedly outof-control detective, David Terrell, had bullied witness William Stevens into accusing him of committing a robbery on June 7, 2016.
But new filings reveal a problem with that allegation: Stevens apparently was not the complaining witness in the robbery and Terrell was not involved in Hernandez’s arrest.
The disclosure came in an affidavit filed by Hernandez’s lawyer, Michael Fruhling, who asked to be taken off of the case after getting a look at the evidence.
Fruhling said in court papers that he could no longer “zealously represent” Hernandez “after a careful evaluation of the facts and circumstances.”
“The information provided by the defense failed to contain information that Detective David Terrell was involved in the initial arrest,” Fruhling wrote.
The lawyer had only been Hernandez’s attorney for two months.
Hernandez, 18, fired his previous civil attorney, John Scola, earlier this year, sources said. Repeated calls to Scola for comment about the firing were not returned.
The teen was arrested seven times between 2014 and 2016 on felony charges that include multiple robberies and at least one shooting. All but one of those charges have been dismissed.
Hernandez has alleged the arrests were part of a farreaching conspiracy focusing on Terrell, who he said intimidated several witnesses — usually Stevens — to lob charges against him, regardless of the evidence.
In mid-2016, he was arrested on attempted murder and weapons possession charges after Bronx prosecutors accused Hernandez of firing a shot that struck 15year-old Shaun Nardoni in the left ankle outside a Morrisania supermarket on Sept. 1, 2015. Hernandez pleaded innocent and refused to take a plea agreement. But, because he was unable to pay bail, he sat in Rikers Island for more than a year — becoming a poster child for supporters of bail reform.
The teen was finally released on July 27 after the nonprofit Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights group put up his bail. During his time in jail, he established himself as an honor student and supporters say he landed a college scholarship.
In September, the charges against Hernandez were dropped after a key witness stopped cooperating and Nardoni couldn’t identify the triggerman.
The June 7, 2016, robbery that is the center of Fruhling’s lawsuit, was also dismissed.
Hernandez still faces a robbery charge in a Nov. 6, 2015, holdup in the Bronx. He is expected to answer the charges in court Tuesday, according to a Bronx District Attorney’s office spokeswoman. The teen has also been arrested twice in the past month for driving on a suspended license in the Bronx and Manhattan, officials said.
Scola has been criticized for an unusual arrangement in which he represented Hernandez in a suit against the city, as well as Stevens, who is listed as a key witness in several of the cases against Hernandez. Scola also works closely with private investigator Manuel Gomez, who helped find some 22 people who say they were harassed by Terrell.
Several prosecutors have pointed to allegations that appear to contradict the growing narrative that showed Hernandez as a squeaky-clean teen ensnared in a corrupt criminal justice system. Law enforcement sources said Hernandez has gang ties. And the allegations he made against Terrell and the NYPD in Hernandez’s lawsuit are baseless, a source with knowledge of the cases said.
“It’s entirely made up. It was really egregious,” the source said.
Questions have also been raised about Gomez’s methods after at least one witness he produced claimed the private eye encouraged her to lie. Queens prosecutors are currently questioning whether Gomez coached or coerced a witness to exonerate Ajaya Neale, who is awaiting trial in the killing of reputed Bloods member Joel Rashko.
At a pretrial hearing on the Neale case last week, witness Erica King testified Gomez “put words” in her mouth and asked her to sign an affidavit that Neale was not at the murder scene. Another witness allegedly identified someone else to Gomez as the shooter during his investigation, but pleaded the Fifth during the hearing.
Despite these legal setbacks and Fruhling asking to be separated from the lawsuit on the 2016 robbery, Gomez said Hernandez is innocent of any wrongdoing.
“(The NYPD) falsely arrested this kid seven times. Each time he was innocent,” Gomez said. “The evidence I have shows unconscionable behavior by the police department against Hernandez and his family.”
Fruhling said the paperwork he filed only centered on the 2016 robbery case, not the 2015 shooting in which Hernandez was exonerated. Fruhling still intends to sue the city for the shooting, although he said the suit hasn’t been filed yet.
“We’re handling (that case) and moving forward,” Fruhling said when reached Thursday. “The (robbery) case was filed by Pedro Hernandez’s previous attorney. My office has moved to be relieved from that case because it was only filed under a specific federal statue that requires certain elements that need to be proven at the time of trial.”
“The documentary evidence sent over by City of New York did not support those federal claims at this point,” Fruhling said, referring to the city’s report that Stevens wasn’t the complaining witness and Terrell wasn’t involved in the arrest.
A lawsuit filed by Hernandez’s alleged shooting victim — Nardoni -- also appears to be on life support. Nardoni had alleged Terrell threatened to kick his head through a wall and punch him in the face if he didn’t identify Hernandez as the gunman. When Nardoni refused, Terrell and another cop arrested him for disorderly conduct on or around Sept. 4, 2015, he said in his suit.
But there’s a problem with that allegation, too. Nardoni was never arrested, the city says.
“(Nardoni) was not arrested at all in September, October, or November of 2015,” the city writes in its court papers.
The critical flaws in these high-profile cases only bolsters Terrell’s innocence, said the cop’s attorney, Eric Sanders.
“It’s very interesting,” Sanders said about Fruhling’s request to be removed from Hernandez’s suit on the 2016 robbery. “Everyone thought this lawsuit had all this merit, and now no one wants to touch it.”
Calls to Alex Spiro, Hernandez’s criminal attorney, and the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights group for comment were not immediately returned.