A Bronx jury today acquitted a man of attempted murder, assault and other charges in the first trial involving a cop accused of fixing traffic tickets.
Lance Williams, 32, was shown on video aiming a gun at his victim. While he was out on bail, cops found him possessing a gun identified by ballistic evidence as the same one used in the shooting.
But that evidence was overshadowed by the jurors’ doubt about testimony from several cops — including one officer accused of fixing three tickets.
“They were lying, lying, lying,” juror Donny Pruill, 37 said of the testifying cops.
“All of them lied,” Pruill said. “The tickets played no part in it — but nobody’s stories matched up.”
Williams was accused of shooting Derrick Jordan inside a Mott Haven apartment on April 7, 2009. Williams was quickly arrested, and soon was freed on $50,000 bail.
Five weeks after the shooting, accused ticket-fixing cop Salvador Duran found Williams with the gun at a barber shop.
Jurors said they didn’t believe Duran’s story that he and other cops encountered Williams while they visited the barber shop as part of a business inspection.
“They all said different things about the reason they went over there,” said one juror who wouldn’t give his name. “They were lying.”
Defense lawyer Kyle Watters pointed out that Duran, an anti-crime unit officer, didn’t know what agency licensed the barber shop and didn’t have proper forms for the inspection.
“He changed his testimony about 10 times on significant things,” Watters said, calling the ticket controversy “just another nail in the coffin of his credibility.”
Williams was returned to Rikers Island after the jury’s verdict because he was charged with marijuana possession while in jail. Lawyers expect him to be freed today.
The suspect’s parents were grateful for the jury’s verdict. “Half our church was praying for him,” said Lance Williams Sr., 55.
“The jury said it all, who they believed, on all counts,” the elder Williams said. “They just showed who they are going for.”