Cab-slay suspect alibi: I was home
A Bronx man accused in the first killing of a greencar cabby in the city says he was home with his family at the time of the shooting — but a judge still ordered him jailed without bail Thursday.
“He’s a family man,” said the lawyer for Nicholas Sanchez, 24, during the suspect’s brief arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court. “He didn’t confess because he didn’t do this.”
The lawyer, Cary London, said Sanchez was nowhere near the shooting of Barry Mamadou, who was found dead in his green cab at East 189th Street and Beaumont Avenue in Fordham early Monday.
Surveillance video shows a black suspect who is taller than Sanchez, who is Latino, London said.
“There is absolutely nothing connecting Mr. Sanchez to this crime,” the lawyer told Justice Julio Rodriguez III.
Mamadou, 39, was on the phone with his brotherinlaw in the cab and whispered, “He has a gun,” moments before he was shot. He leaves a pregnant wife and three sons.
Sanchez “was extremely cooperative” with police, London told the judge in asking for low bail.
“He allowed them to search his house. They didn’t find a weapon. They didn’t find anything connecting him to the crime,” the lawyer said. “He even allowed them to swab his mouth for DNA.”
Sanchez’s wife is pregnant, and “he would never take the life of another when he has a life on the way,” London said. “Their evidence in this case is completely paper thin.”
London acknowledged that a witness picked Sanchez out of a lineup, but said the others in the lineup were more fairskinned, leaving his client to stand out.
Sanchez is due back in court Tuesday.