Brooklyn prosecutor Michael Vecchione hit with $150 million lawsuit alleging widespread misconduct
A top Brooklyn prosecutor has been slammed with a $150 million federal lawsuit accusing him of engaging in widespread pattern of misconduct in an effort to railroad an innocent man for the murder of a rabbi.
The suit was filed Wednesday by Jabbar Collins, who was released from prison last year after new evidence emerged that prosecutor
Michael Vecchione won the conviction in 1995 by coercing false testimony from a witness.
The key witness testified in Brooklyn Federal Court last year that Vecchione, now the chief of the Brooklyn district attorney's rackets bureau, threatened to bash him over the head with a coffee table and toss him in jail if he did not finger Collins for killing Rabbi Abraham Pollack.
"Vecchione engaged in a series of fraudulent, deceptive and literally criminal acts, all caused by and consistent with his office's unlawful policies, in order to convict Jabbar Collins and make the conviction last," lawyer Joel Rudin contends in the 110-page complaint.
Although Brooklyn D.A. Charles Hynes is not a defendant in the suit, Rudin says Hynes effectively condoned Vecchione's illegal behavior by "his unwillingness to even investigate, let alone discipline" the prosecutor.
Also named in the suit are six supervising lawyers in the D.A.'s office, who allegedly covered up information requested by Collins as he sought to investigate the case and overturn the conviction from his jail cell upstate.
The suit also contains new allegations that Vecchione filed sworn affidavits with false notarizations in connection with the Collins case which, if true, is a misdemeanor crime and could get a lawyer disbarred.
The D.A.'s office agreed to stop fighting Collins' appeal last year shortly before Vecchione was scheduled to testify at an evidentiary hearing. Federal Judge Dora Irizarry called the D.A.'s conduct "shameful."
A spokesman for the D.A.'s office declined to comment.
BY John Marzulli
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER