'DISPOSED' BODY, BUT SET FREE
LI chop DA slams ‘absurb’ bail-reform laws
Four people were charged Wednesday with hiding pieces of two dead bodies that were hacked up with meat cleavers, then scattered across Long Island, but they were freed on supervised release in an “absurd result” blamed on the state’s bail-reform laws.
The foursome tried to conceal the corpses in a scheme so grisly that the drains, toilets, sinks and showers stopped working in the Amityville home to where three of the accused had just moved weeks earlier, prosecutors claimed in Suffolk County court.
Roommates Steven Brown, 44, Jeffrey Mackey, 38, and Amanda Wallace, 40, were charged alongside homeless woman Alexis Nieves, 33, with hindering prosecution, concealment of a human corpse and tampering with physical evidence, but none of the four has yet been accused of murder, Suffolk police said.
They pleaded not guilty and were released with ankle monitors.
Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney slammed those laws in a statement just before the arraignment, saying his prosecutors couldn’t ask for cash bail because recent reforms declared the crimes of mutilation and disposal of a murdered person’s corpse were no longer eligible.
“This is yet another absurd result thanks to ‘Bail Reform’ and a system where the Legislature in Albany substitutes their judgment for the judgment of our judges and the litigants in court,” Tierney said in the Wednesday statement.
Mackey is expected to face additional charges as the member of the team whose actions included “hacking off the limbs of two human bodies and scattering them in several areas in the county,” Assistant District Attorney Frank Schroeder said at Mackey’s arraignment.
Cops believe all the remains are of a 59-year-old woman and a 53year-old man who lived at the same Yonkers address.
Authorities have not revealed a motive for the killings or how the victims and the accused may have known each other.
The suspects allegedly removed “sharp instruments, multiple body parts and other related items” from the two-family house on Amitville’s Railroad Avenue between Feb. 27, when the first remains were found by a child walking to school, and Monday, when cops raided the home, Suffolk police said.
Knives and cleavers
In addition to the remains, authorities also collected meat cleavers and butcher knives, and found a significant amount of blood in the home, Schroeder said.
“In disposing of the body, this defendant rendered the sink, showers, drains and toilets inoperable,” Schroeder told the court of each of the suspects. He said the alleged lengths the suspects went to shows they are flight risks.
But Judge Edward Hennessey opted for supervised release.
“The court . . . has a responsibility to release on recognizance unless this defendant is a risk to public safety,” he said of each suspect.