In the bloody years when killings peaked in New York City, Detective Louis Scarcella built a reputation for closing cases.
A second-generation cop who smoked cigars, ran marathons, worked a side job at a Coney Island amusement park and jokingly put"adventurer" on his business card, the now-retired sleuth has been frank about lying to suspects, even praying with them, to elicit information. In the 1980s and '90s, he got confession after confession. Prosecutors got conviction after conviction.
"This defendant is still guilty," prosecutor Chow Yun Xie said at the retrial of Eliseo DeLeon, who says he is innocent. DeLeon's murder conviction was overturned in 2019 after he spent 24 years behind bars. After retiring in 1999, he told the"Dr. Phil" show that he'd done"whatever I have to do within the law" to get confessions or cooperation.
So far, 17 people in cases involving Scarcella have effectively been cleared when prosecutors disavowed convictions or declined retrials after judges overturned guilty verdicts. Prosecutors say Scarcella and his partner played only a minor role in DeLeon's case. And prosecutors emphasize that two eyewitnesses — the victim's wife and a stranger — returned to court 27 years later to identify DeLeon anew as the killer of victim Fausto Cordero.A would-be robber shot Cordero as he headed home from a 1995 religious confirmation party with his wife and other relatives, including the couple's 7-year-old son. A tip led police to DeLeon, then 18.
"I'm not going to just go and be a fool, put myself on tape and say I did something I didn't do. I'm not stupid," he said in the video, which jurors at his initial trial weren't allowed to see.
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