Father of Raiders star Malcolm Koonce fights to erase 1983 conviction
NEW YORK– Years before Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Malcolm Koonce was born, his father spent time in prison for an armed robbery conviction that prosecutors now say was tainted by a detective’s lies and ” highly suggestive’ photo identification techniques.
Jeffrey Koonce, now 67, will ask a suburban New York judge Friday to vacate his conviction for a 1981 robbery of the Vernon Stars Rod and Gun Club in Mount Vernon, where three people were struck by shotgun pellets while patrons were being served. looted of money and jewelry. .
Koonce, who spent nearly eight years in prison, has always maintained his innocence. Westchester County District Attorney Mimi Rocah is supporting his request after her office discovered problems with the case.
Rocah’s Conviction Review Unit investigated the 1983 conviction and found evidence that Mount Vernon police pressured the only victim witness to implicate Koonce, made Koonce’s photo larger than others in a photo lineup and failed to provide an alibi -interview witnesses who confirmed his claim that he was somewhere else.
A Mount Vernon detective later lied about the composition of the photo arrays when testifying at hearings and Koonce’s trial, and a court subsequently ordered the department to change unnecessarily suggestive photo identification practices, Rocah said. One of the detectives involved in Koonce’s case later went to prison after a federal corruption sting.
In a statement, Rocah said Koonce’s conviction was “tainted by such questionable investigative processes and procedures” that her office can no longer abide by it.
Koonce and his attorney, Karen Newirth, will appear before Westchester County Judge James McCarty on Friday to request that he vacate Koonce’s theft and gun possession convictions and dismiss the underlying charges.
Koonce disappeared from court during jury deliberations and was found about seven months later, sleeping on his girlfriend’s couch in the Bronx, according to newspaper reports at the time.
He was sentenced to 7½ to 15 years in prison for the robbery and served a shorter, concurrent sentence for bail jumping. He was released on parole in August 1992. His brother Paul, a high school sophomore at the time, was also charged in the robbery. He was acquitted.
Malcolm Koonce was born in 1998. The NFL’s Raiders drafted him in 2021. Another son, Dejuan Koonce, is a retired New York State Trooper who was assigned to the protective detail of Governor Kathy Hochul and former Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Police accused Jeffrey and Paul Koonce of being among three men who robbed the Vernon Stars club on June 20, 1981. Customers were forced to lie face down on the floor and had to hand over approximately $500 in cash, jewelry and other valuables. the police said.
One of the perpetrators had a sawed-off shotgun and fired at least two rounds, hitting a 15-year-old and two other patrons, police said.
Rocah’s office found that detectives used questionable tactics to coerce a victim into identifying Koonce as the shooter. He was the only person who did this. Others told investigators it was too dark in the club to identify the perpetrators by their faces.
The witness, a freshman in high school at the time, chose Koonce from a photo lineup that included Koonce’s enlarged photo and smaller images of men who did not look like him.
The witness later told Rocah’s office that he did not remember seeing any faces in the dark club and that other patrons covered him immediately after the shooting, obstructing his view.
Detectives then took Koonce to the hospital where the witness was being treated so he could personally identify him. The witness told a hearing that he felt pressured to quickly identify Koonce. The judge called the tactic “inadmissibly suggestive.”
Rocah’s office also found that Mount Vernon detectives harmed Koonce by not interviewing all of his alibi witnesses. They include a now-retired New York City police detective who said Koonce was in town with him the night of the robbery.