Crime

I Represented A Monster -- Except He Really Wasn’t

Or, how murder happens even when it’s not intended.

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(Image via Getty)

Last Friday, five men were convicted of murder in the first degree for the killing of Lesandro “Junior” Guzman Feliz in June 2018.  The New York Post ran a front-page headline in bold caps, “MACHETE MONSTERS GUILTY.”

I represented one of the “Machete Monsters” and I liked him.  The night of the murder, my client, Manuel Rivera, wasn’t carrying a machete; he wasn’t a monster and he never intended to kill Junior.

The media ran with the narrative, promoted by the prosecution and the family of the deceased, that the 15-year-old was killed in a case of mistaken identification by gangbangers, viciously stabbed by all of them and killed, Caesar-like, from the cuts of many wounds.

Except that’s not what happened.  Even as the evidence demonstrated that Junior was killed by only one man, Janaki Estrella-Martinez, the false narrative had taken hold and all five defendants were convicted of the highest crime in New York State — murder by torture.

My client, age 18 (and nine months, as the prosecutor liked to remind jurors), had joined a dangerous gang, the Trinitarios, and without the benefit of his mother, left behind in the Dominican Republic, made some very poor decisions that will now land him in jail probably for the rest of his life.

Manuel Rivera came from the Dominican Republic (legally) at age 15 with his dad and two sisters.  The dad struggled to make a living and Manuel struggled in school.  He was a skinny kid, just 120 pounds, 5’6” inches tall.  His English was poor.  He was picked on and one time, beaten up so badly his ribs were broken.

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Instead of turning to police, he turned to the Trinitarios, who like him, shared a Dominican heritage.  Manuel enjoyed the Trinitarios parties, the hookah, the beads, the hand signs, the comradery, and fact that they had his back.  He felt cool.  He believed he’d found a place to belong.

On the night of June 20th ,  he was ordered by a leader nicknamed “Psycho” to find “a Sunset” (a rival gang member).  His understanding, as was everyone’s, was that the group was ordered to physically harm (not kill) “any Sunset” they found.  They carried weapons for two reasons — for their own protection and to use them to hurt (not kill) a Sunset.

Junior was spotted walking late at night in the Bronx neighborhood frequented by the Sunsets.  He gave a coded gang response when asked a question by a Trinitarios gang member driving by.  Only someone in the gang would know the response.  When Junior ran, the group gave chase.  One of the Trinitarios, who turned cooperator and will now face no jail time, dragged Junior from the bodega where he was hiding and onto the street.  Five men approached, including Manuel, weapons in hand.

It appeared from a video of the crime (caught from multiple angles) that each attacked him viciously.  But what the autopsy report meticulously documented was that Junior suffered minor physical injury, superficial wounds, no bigger than a lentil, except for a large wound to his neck.  That wound was inflicted by one defendant alone, Mr. Estrella.

The medical examiner testified she was “a lumper” – a doctor who looks to combine injuries and conclude that they all might have contributed to death.  But in this case, she couldn’t.  The only injury that caused Junior’s death was clearly the neck wound.  Had Junior not been stabbed in the neck during the last seconds of the attack, he would have likely walked home barely injured except for abrasions to his body caused by being dragged out of the store and punched.

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Although this position was strenuously argued by defense counsel, the jury ignored it.  It was a “lawyer’s argument” (as the judge’s law clerk put it) — intellectual, nitpicky — not visceral.   As one defense counsel said in his summation, the biggest obstacle in this case for defendants was not the facts, it was “the anger and the desire for retribution.”

The video of the killing was released to social media only hours after Junior’s death.  Police had seized the footage that night and it got leaked. (No one claims responsibility.) Once that video was out, it took on a life of its own causing the defendants to lose the presumption of innocence and any chance for a fair trial (at least that close in time to the event itself — under one year.)

It was shared millions of times on social media and in the general press.  It brought cries for vengeance couched in the “Justice for Junior” slogan. Following that, no amount of logic, analysis, or pleas for reason could convince jurors to set aside their emotions.  A bottle of hate had been uncorked and there was no way to close it.  (Police were stationed in the street outside court, anticipating a riot should the verdict not have come back as guilty on all counts.)

A street was named after Junior, a scholarship fund, a summer camp.  He was depicted in murals and online with a halo and angel wings.  No one, not prosecutors or police, wanted to admit, that Junior had gang connections.  His history was whitewashed.

Whether Junior was a gang member or not, didn’t justify his death.  The murder was just as horrific.  But I understand why the People adopted the Junior-as-saint story.  It made the tragedy of his killing that much worse and convictions that much more guaranteed.

It also made his story easier to use as a rallying cry to target gangs that attract and control vulnerable teens like Manuel. It led to a clearer morality tale. As Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said in a press conference following the verdict, “Junior came to symbolize all of the young people who have lost their lives to brutal gang violence. Today’s verdict fortifies the Bronx community’s stand against violence.”

The attention this case brings to the heinous nature of gangs is important.

But the glee I saw in the eyes of spectators at the reading of straight convictions for Murder I was not founded.  Putting four young men in jail for life for a murder they didn’t intend (each was either running away, or nowhere near Junior when Estrella inflicted the fatal wound) should thrill no one.

Let’s continue to examine why so many youths, particularly from inner cities, are attracted to the brutality of gangs.  Why do so many buy into a life that restricts their freedom, imposes beatings for disobeying gang rules, and calls for violence to others?  What is the derivation of this distorted quest for manhood and meaning?  What could be put in place in their neighborhoods to substitute the pull of the gang?

Only by addressing these issues might other young men like Junior not be killed, and still others like four of the five defendants in this case, not be condemned to life in prison for the actions of a few seconds done by a fellow gang member which they never intended.

Toni Messina has tried over 100 cases and has been practicing criminal law and immigration since 1990. You can follow her on Twitter: @tonitamess.

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