Blog

By: Herbert Lowe Staff Writer A New Jersey man pleaded guilty to manslaughter yesterday in the 1999 beating death of Manhattan community activist Armando Perez. When Mr. Perez punched me in my face, I lost it, Shaguye Colbert, 29, of Newark, told Justice Robert Hanophy in State Supreme Court in Kew Gardens. I didn’t mean to kill him, Colbert said as Perez’s widow and several of her supporters looked on. He hurt me and I intended to hurt him back. Perez, 51, was killed on April 3, 1999, in front of the Ravenswood Houses in Long Island City. A democratic district leader on the Lower East Side, Perez was visiting his wife, Marianne, when he became involved in a random dispute with Colbert, who was leaning on Perez’s car, prosecutors said. Colbert will be sentenced to 10 years in prison on June 16. Malik Hill, 26, also of Newark, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in June for helping Colbert beat Perez to death. Hill, who is awaiting sentencing, was to testify against Colbert as part of the plea deal calling for Hill to spend 8 years in prison. Police initially arrested four men in the case based on two witnesses’ accounts. Prosecutors dismissed the charges after a new witness identified Colbert, who in turn led police to Hill. I’m not letting these four boys go down for a murder they didn’t commit, Colbert’s attorney, Todd Greenberg, quoted his client as telling authorities in 2002 from the New Jersey jail where he was serving time after pleading guilty to complicity to a robbery. Perez ran with a street gang for a time before turning to community activism. In 1979, he helped convert a dilapidated school building in Manhattan into Charas/El Bohio, a center for struggling painters, dancers and actors. Marianne Perez, 47, Councilwoman Margarita Lopez (D-Manhattan) and nearly a dozen supporters said after Colbert’s plea that he showed too little remorse. He may have been sentenced to 10 years, but I hope that it’s a life sentence, Marianne Perez said, that he doesn’t ever walk out of there alive. It may sound bitter, but I’m angry. Lopez cried from her courtroom seat as Colbert spoke. It blows me away that the man doesn’t have any remorse, she said.

By HUGH SON DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER A veteran cop accused of killing a young Brooklyn motorcyclist while driving drunk was acquitted of all charges yesterday, a verdict that outraged the victim’s family. Off-duty Officer Victor Wilson, 43, had just left a Bay Ridge bowling alley when he crashed into Stefanos Kiladitis’ motorbike at 88th St. and Fort Hamilton Parkway on June 19, 2002. Kiladitis landed 30 feet from his Yamaha motorcycle and died of his injuries three days later. Defense lawyer Todd Greenberg said that jurors believed Wilson’s bowling buddies and an arresting officer on the scene who testified that the cop appeared sober, despite a test that found otherwise. An Intoxilyzer test administered by cops two hours after the crash found Wilson’s blood-alcohol level to be 0.11% – 0.1% above the legal limit – but the test was shown to be unreliable, Greenberg said. ‘This basically says if you’re a cop you can do something wrong and get away with it,’ said Despena Vasiadis, 25, fiancee? of Kiladitis’ brother John. Another factor in the verdict was that Kiladitis, 21, was traveling along Fort Hamilton Parkway at 55 mph above the speed limit, sources said. ‘Although we’re pleased with the verdict, Mr. Wilson wants the Kiladitis family to know that he certainly shares their sadness,’ Greenberg said. Wilson, of Tottenville, S.I. had been charged with vehicular manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Greenberg called for the suspended cop to be returned to active duty.

By Eric Lenkowitz The family of a woman shot to death by her correction-officer husband reacted with tears and outrage yesterday after the 38-year-old killer was convicted in a Queens Court of the lightest charge he faced – one that could get him as little as five years in jail. ‘It should have been murder,’ said Angelina Cosby, aunt to 26-year-old victim Felicia Cosby. ‘No jail time is enough. He deserves a death sentence.’ Justice Evelyn Braun, presiding over the nonjury trial, acquitted Van Griffin of second-degree murder charges that could have gotten him 25 years to life in prison, after she found he was suffering from an extreme emotional disturbance when he killed Cosby in a dispute over child support on Nov. 6, 2000. But Braun convicted him of manslaughter. ‘This is such a sad and tragic case,’ Braun said before explaining the verdict. Braun said her decision was based heavily on the testimony of psychiatrist Robert Berger and the doctor called in by prosecutor Antignani. ‘In large part, corroborated every finding of Dr. Berger,’ the judge said. Both psychiatrists agreed that Griffin suffered from brain damage and severe depression stemming from a 1996 motorcycle accident. ‘Van Griffin was suffering from a unique combination of stresses,’ Braun said. Griffin”s lawyer, Todd Greenberg, said, ‘One of my strategies was to force then to call .’ Braun said that when she factored the doctors” testimonies with those of Griffin”s friends and family, it all fit together.’ Griffin faces 5 to 25 years when he is sentenced Sept. 8, and Anitignani said he is, ‘going to ask for the maximum sentence.’ Braun said he would do ‘serious time.’ ‘He still will be held responsible for this crime,’ Braun said. ‘ had a right to live her life and he had no right to take her life.’ After the verdict Angelina Cosby said the extreme emotional disturbance defense is ‘just an excuse.’ Felicia Cosby’s father, Keith Cosby, said he expected the judge to rule in Griffin”s favor, but added, ‘less than 20 years, I’ll be upset.’

By Robert E. Kessler STAFF WRITER TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 A federal prosecutor began a second trial yesterday against a Queens man charged with defrauding his late wife out of her share of the couple’s $1.2 million in assets. Ali Bessaha, 65, of 43-20 40 th St. in Long Island City, is accused in U.S. District Court in Manhattan of cheating his late wife, Ourida of Hicksville, through mail and wire fraud. He also is accused of obtaining a passport under fraudulent pretenses. The first attempt to prosecute Bessaha on fraud charges ended in a mistrial at U.S. District Court in Central Islip in May when a juror disobeyed a judge’s orders and read a newspaper account of the case. The juror then told another juror that the jury had been deliberately denied a key fact: that Bessaha also is accused of killing his wife. U.S. District Court Judge Leonard Wexler had told jurors not to read any newspaper accounts of Bessaha’s trial, fearing it would prejudice the jury. A date to try the murder case in state court in Nassau County has not been set. Ourida Bessaha was found beaten to death in January 1999 in her Hicksville home. Federal postal inspectors initially gathered evidence of the alleged fraud, resulting in the first charges against her husband. Bessaha’s attorney, Todd Greenberg of Forest Hills, denies his client either killed his wife or cheated her out of any money. As a result of the juror reading an account of the initial Bessaha trial in Newsday, Wexler ordered the second trial transferred from Long Island to Manhattan. During opening remarks yesterday, federal prosecutor Gary Brown said Bessaha used a complicated scheme to illegally transfer his and his wife’s assets overseas amid their divorce so that she would not get her fair share. Brown said Bessaha was ‘not playing by the rules’ and wanted to make sure that his wife would ‘not get anything.’ But Greenberg told jurors that his client was not transferring any of the couple’s joint assets to France. Throughout their marriage, Greenberg said, Bessaha and his wife had always had separate assets, and the money that was transferred overseas belonged to his client. The Bessaha’s were involved in ‘a bitter, bitter divorce action,’ Greenberg said, ‘but the federal government has no business getting involved in it.’