A man who spent years 15 years in prison after being convicted of killing a rabbi sued the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office today in a $150 million lawsuit charging the agency with deliberately withholding evidence during his trial.
Jabbar Collins was convicted in 1995 of murdering Rabbi Abraham Pollack in Williamsburg during an armed robbery, but was freed last year by a federal judge after allegations of prosecutorial misconduct arose.
The lawsuit claims that Charles Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney, has shown a “history of indifference” to “pervasive misconduct” by overzealous prosecutors and investigators and has refused to discipline employees even after proven allegations of wrongdoing have been leveled.
The lawsuit follows developments last year when questions emerged about the testimony of key witnesses in the murder investigation during a hearing in Brooklyn federal court.
One witness, Edwin Olivia, explained that he initially informed investigators that he had heard Collins planning the armed robbery.
Olivia later told a prosecutor that he recanted his statement, because he was afraid of retribution, sources said.
But Olivia then changed back to his original story and eventually testified against Collins at the murder trial.
Collins has claimed that prosecutor Michael Vecchione in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office never disclosed these damaging inconsistencies to anyone, including the defense team.
Vecchione, who was personally named in the suit, has responded to these allegations by denying that he knew about Olivia’s disavowal of the original story he provided to investigators.
The Brooklyn DA’s office announced last year that it had only recently learned of the recantation from a retired detective.
Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes, declined to comment on the suit.
There were other troubling issues in the Collins murder prosecution, Collins claims in the suit.
A second witness in the homicide probe testified last year in federal court that he had been threatened by authorities if he failed to act as a witness in the original murder trial.
The man, Angel Santos, told federal judge Dora Irizzary that he had been coerced to take the witness stand during a meeting with Vecchione.
“He told me he was going to hit me over the head with a coffee table or lock me up for a couple of years for perjury,” Santos told the court last May.
In an affidavit, Vecchione, has denied coercing or threatening anybody.
After the allegations of misconduct arose last year, Judge Irizarry ordered that Collins be freed and overturned his conviction.
After being found guilty of the 1994 murder, Collins had been sentenced to serve a 34-year-to-life sentence.