No slay-rap reprieve

S.I. judge won’t nix ’92 conviction despite ‘confession’

A Staten Island judge declined Thursday to vacate the murder conviction of a man who has served 27 years in prison even though his defense lawyers claim they have the real killer’s confession on video.

Judge Alexander Jeong refused to clear Foster Thompson (right with wife Sandra) in the 1992 fatal shooting of Cynthia Browning and wounding of Alton Staley. Thompson has 10 years left on a 37-year sentence and asked for a new trial.

Thompson’s lawyer, Abe George, said a man named David Clark, copped to the crime, admitting his guilt to a private investigator. Thompson was tried three times; his first two cases ended in mistrials.

His defense lawyers allege prosecutors withheld key evidence, including a witness who fingered a man named “Jamaican Tony”— which is Clark’s nickname — and refused to view the confession video.

The Thompson family was devastated by Jeong’s decision Thursday, which came after his attorneys issued a press release that said the judge was “expected” to vacate the sentence. But it didn’t go that way. “This was the decision and I am very comfortable with it,” Judge Jeong said, without explaining his decision.

Ryan Lavis, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, denied defense lawyers’ claims.

“The video was thoroughly reviewed by this office and that, along with other relevant evidence, informed our decision to not overturn the jury’s verdict,” he explained.

Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon defended its handling of the case. “The Staten Island District Attorney’s office takes every allegation of wrongful conviction seriously,” the office said in a statement. “Therefore, a thorough investigation of the allegations made by Mr. Thompson’s lawyer was undertaken by our office. We found in our review that there was insufficient credible evidence to support an application to set aside the jury’s verdict.”

George said when the judge granted the hearing, he thought his client had a chance. “Clearly if the judge is going to feel that the confession of a man that purported to commit the murder, and an accomplice who came forward to testify here that our client didn’t do it, wasn’t good enough for this judge, we weren’t going to get justice here in Staten Island,” he said.

Thompson wept after he was taken from the courtroom.

His 77-year-old mother Brenda said the man who confessed to the murder wants to return, but allegedly prosecutors don’t want to deal with it.

“How can you not honor that?” she said. “Where is the justice of it? It’s so sad, but it is what it is.”

Thompson’s wife, Sandra, was disappointed by the outcome. “It’s been a long journey,” she said. “Hopefully things will turn out the way we want … This is heartbreaking. It’s sad.”

George noted that Staten Island is the only borough in the city with no conviction review unit.

“I think there’s a lot of entrenched politics that’s going on with this issue, and the only way things are going to change is if we have a regime change in this office,” George said. “The rest of the boroughs have moved on with the times, but not Staten Island.”

Thompson is serving time at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining. George said he will appeal the ruling.