NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- A judged ordered a retrial on Wednesday for a 61-year-old former crack kingpin who was convicted of two murders in 1990.
Samuel “Baby Sam” Edmonson was serving a 75-year-minimum prison term when a key witness recanted his testimony and claimed NYPD Detective Louis Scarcella pressured him to lie on the stand, the New York Daily News reported.
Keith Christmas originally testified that he saw Edmonson at a murder scene talking to the victim before an associate killed him.
Now he claims Scarcella and Detective William Morris bought him food, promised him a lenient sentence and brought him to have sex with two different women in order to pressure him to lie.
Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Vincent Del Giudice thought the recantation merited a retrial, which, given Scarcella’s reputation, is unsurprising.
Judges have thrown out at least sixteen convictions due to Scarcella’s dirty detective work. The subsequent lawsuits have cost the city tens of millions of dollars.
The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office is still investigating convictions he was involved with.
The statute of limitations has protected him from repercussions for his constant misconduct.
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