Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes ‘Tamper’ flares

A defense lawyer claims Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes’ office coached a witness to implicate his client in an armed robbery and fudged evidence in prosecuting the case.

Attorney Mark Bederow levels the bombshell accusation in a 10-page letter he fired off to the case’s lead prosecutor on Friday, copied to Hynes and submitted to Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Suzanne Mondo and the court clerk.

The claim comes as Hynes, who is up for re-election next year, deals with a suit alleging his office manipulated evidence in convicting an innocent man of murder in 1995.

The letter demands the DA drop charges against Ronald Bozeman, 65, who faces life in jail for a heist last year outside an HSBC bank in Downtown Brooklyn in which two grocery workers were forced into their SUV at gunpoint and robbed of $9,000 they had just withdrawn.

“This prosecution has been a fiasco,” Bederow wrote to Assistant DA Sabeeha Madni.

“The DA had knowledge that prosecution against Mr. Bozeman was unwarranted,” he wrote.

Bozeman, who previously served 12 years for robbery, became a suspect after his DNA was found on a white cloth in a zippered blue bag the two bandits left in the SUV.

But a prosecutor mistakenly said Bozeman’s DNA was found on a “white cloth bag,” Bederow states.

A victim later testified he saw a “white cloth bag,” and Bederow claims the sworn statement shows the witness was coached.

The two victims also initially identified Bozeman as the gunman, court papers show. But both switched their statements six weeks later, pointing to suspect George Johnson after Johnson’s DNA was found on a cellphone left by the thieves, Bederow alleges.

The DA’s Office “knowingly elicited contradictory identification testimony from the same two key witnesses before two separate grand juries,” Bederow alleges.

Neither man was the gunman, Bederow says in the letter, claiming that Johnson was an accomplice and that another man, Edicy “Slim” Reedy, had the weapon.

Reedy owned the phone, his DNA was on the bag and he matched witness descriptions of the gunman, the lawyer wrote.

Reedy was arrested, but never put in a police lineup, and the DA declined to prosecute, stating two people were already arrested and charged, a court document shows.

Reedy could not be reached for comment. Johnson’s lawyer did not return a call.

A federal judge last month criticized Hynes for promoting his deputy, Michael Vecchione, who allegedly manipulated evidence to send Jabbar Collins to prison for 15 years in the 1995 slaying of Rabbi Abraham Pollack.

Collins was freed last year and has sued the city for $150 million.

Vecchione has denied any wrongdoing. Hynes has defended his office’s actions in the case.        




NY POST