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Another Victim of Hate Attacks Testifies in Marcelo Lucero Trial

Posted March 30, 2010 by Patrick Young, Esq.
Categories: Hate Watch

Newsday reports that three witnesses testified today against Jeff Conroy, accused of killing Marcelo Lucero. According to Newsday:

A Mexican immigrant testified Tuesday in Riverhead that he did not want to press charges against two teenagers in November 2008, even though he said they knocked him unconscious while he and a friend walked near a Medford gas station.

“I didn’t want any problems,” Octavio Cordova said during the hate-crime murder trial of Jeffrey Conroy in Suffolk County Court. “I didn’t know if they lived in the area. ... I didn’t want to run into them later on.”

Speaking in Spanish through an interpreter, Cordova said he was struck in the chest by a white youth wearing a white shirt who was walking with a black teen near the gas station on Nov. 3, 2008. Other witnesses testified Tuesday that Conroy was wearing a white shirt that day while he walked with a friend, Jose Pacheco, who has dark skin.

The Cordova attack occurred the Monday before Marcelo Lucero was killed.

Testifying as a prosecution witness, Cordova said he was knocked unconscious during the attack. When he regained consciousness, he was bleeding from the mouth and had a sore arm, he said.

Days later, he sought treatment at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center in East Patchogue. “I couldn’t lift anything with my arm,” he testified. Cordova was not asked about his treatment.

Michelle Cassidy, a friend of Conroy’s testified that:

she saw Cordova lying in the street, apparently unconscious, but she did not see the altercation.

Conroy “might have kicked him,” Cassidy said during questioning by Assistant District Attorney Megan O’Donnell.

When questioned by Conroy’s attorney, William Keahon of Hauppauge, Cassidy said she was not sure whether Conroy had struck Cordova.

“I didn’t see him do anything, and he didn’t say he did anything,” she said.

Cassidy, a student at Patchogue-Medford High School, was not among those charged in the alleged attacks.

As she testified, Cassidy glanced at Conroy several times and at one point smiled at him. Pressed by O’Donnell, she admitted she had tried to help Conroy by lying during testimony before a grand jury.

Cassidy said she, Conroy and other teens had gathered to hang out and drink beers at Peppermint Park in Medford on Nov. 3, 2008. At some point, some of the teens began shouting to the others to run away from police, and Cassidy saw Cordova lying on the ground, she testified.

“Squad up!” said one of the boys, Kevin Shea, 18, of Medford, according to Cassidy. She said the phrase was Shea’s way of organizing friends to go somewhere.

Later, she said, Conroy and Pacheco, 19, of East Patchogue, were questioned by police and released. Cassidy said she and other girls told a female police officer, “We were there, and it wasn’t them.”

No word on perjury or obstruction of justice charges against Cassidy.

A police officer also testified:

Suffolk police Officer Danielle Lanzarone testified Tuesday that Conroy and Pacheco were released after they told her minutes after the alleged attack that Shea and another teen, Anthony Hartford, were responsible for beating Cordova. She said Cordova appeared to have a cut lip from the altercation.

Lanzarone said she filed a two-page incident report on the alleged attack, but Cordova asked police not to press charges.

“He seemed scared, hesitating,” she said. “He made it clear he didn’t want to press charges or go any further.”

Questioned by Keahon, Lanzarone said the incident report said Cordova described his assailant as an “unknown subject in a red sweatshirt.” Conroy was not wearing a red sweatshirt that night, witnesses said.

A passerby also testified about the attack on Cordova:

Vincent Martino, of Medford, said he was getting gas when he saw two teens, including one wearing a red sweatshirt, running back and forth and throwing themselves against a restroom door at the gas station. Soon after, he said, the boys ran in another direction, where Cordova lay in the street.

Two youths, apparently Conroy and Pacheco, were standing over Cordova as Martino approached, he testified. They fled, but Martino said he helped to stop them a few minutes later as Lanzarone attempted to question them.

Martino said he asked Conroy who hit Cordova. “It wasn’t us,” Conroy said, according to Martino. “It was Kevin.”

“He said he didn’t know his last name, he had just met him in the park,” Martino testified.

Cassidy had testified that Shea was walking with Hartford, who wore a red sweatshirt that night.

Cassidy also testified that she was with Conroy and other teens on Nov. 8, 2008, at the Medford train station and at a Yaphank park several hours before Lucero was killed.

At the train station, she said, Conroy had cut his finger while play-wrestling with another girl.

“We didn’t have any Band-Aids or napkins, so we gave him a tampon,” she said.

Cassidy said Conroy and six other boys left the park together in a sport utility vehicle driven by Jordan Dasch, 19, of Medford, who also has pleaded guilty to gang assault. Prosecutors have said they left the park in search of Hispanics to attack.

Before the boys left, she said, Shea called out to the others, “Squad up!”

Tags : hate crimes, hate watch, jeffrey conroy, marcelo lucero

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