By Blanca M. Quintanilla
The attorney for a teenager charged with brutally stabbing a 16-year-old boy to death in an Elmhurst teen hangout told a jury during closing arguments yesterday that his client was charged with a crime he did not commit.
Todd Greenberg, a Forest Hills attorney representing , 17, also said that the victim, , may have already been dead — from a severe blow to the head — before his client allegedly stabbed him.
“The stabbing was not the cause of death,” Greenberg said in front of a crowded Jamaica courtroom. “What’s the motive? Why would 17-year-old , a Queens College student, want to murder ?
Assistant District Attorney Debra Lynn Pomodore rejected Greenberg’s theory. Telling the jury she did not need to prove a motive for the killing, she said “savagely” stabbed 18 times.
, 16, of Maspeth, was found dead on Dec. 6, 1992 in the graffiti-scarred series of alleyways in Elmhurst teens call The Maze.
If convicted of murder, faces 25 years to life in prison.
Greenberg attacked the testimony of Dr. Aglae Charlot, the medical examiner who performed an autopsy on , saying she failed to do a complete autopsy.
“The people’s witnesses lack credibility,” said Greenberg. He did not call one witness on behalf of his client, saying the people’s case didn’t merit a rebuttal.
He also blasted the three prosecution witnesses who said they saw stab repeatedly. He told the jury that members of a graffiti drawing group had pinned the murder on his client because he was not a member of the crew, did not have a “tag,” and was the only outsider in a closely knit group.
Pomodore urged the jury to give a tag name.
“The only appropriate tag is murderer,” she told the jury. She noted that first kicked to render him helpless.
Pomodore rejected any suggestion that was dead when he was stabbed.
“The only issue presented to you at this time is what is the identity of the person who stabbed to death on Dec. 6, 1992,” Pomodore said.
The jury began deliberations last night.
