Suspect Brian Brockington: Portrait of the rapist as a young man 
By Nicholas Stix
Pro-criminal Bronx DA Robert Johnson has been in office for 23 years. Maybe we ought to charge Johnson with three rapes, and make Brockington the DA; we couldn’t do much worse.
His office refuses to explain how they managed to screw up six ways from Sunday. So, I’ll do it for them: Their office is run by incompetents who were hired, based either on their wealth and political connections, or their race or ethnicity.
Bronx district attorney's office bungles DNA evidence in brutal rape case
DA forced to drop charges against cousins Brian Brockington and Rodney Howard
By Kevin Deutsch and Janon Fisher
Thursday, February 16, 2012, 11:20 PM
New York Daily News
Bureaucratic bungling by the Bronx district attorney’s office has allowed two men linked to a brutal rape by DNA evidence to walk free, law enforcement sources said.
Cousins Brian Brockington, 35, and Rodney Howard, 36, were arrested in 2009 after their genetic material was matched to a 1993 gunpoint sexual assault on a 29-year-old woman.
But after that, what appeared to be an airtight case started springing holes.
The mismanagement started with a police backlog.
DNA evidence from the crime wasn’t processed for nearly a decade — months before the crime’s 10-year statute of limitation, the DA said.
Prosecutors then dragged their feet in the case despite having enough evidence against the cousins, failing to file charges until the day after statute of limitation expired, admitted Steven Reed, a Bronx district attorney’s spokesman.
Because of the lapse, the DA’s office was forced to drop the charges against the two.
“They should have paid more attention. You can’t let a man like this walk free,” said one of the victims, who said Brockington raped her. “He’s a monster, I can’t believe he’s getting out of jail. He’s a serial rapist.”
Brockington is expected to be released soon. Howard was set free last February.
“They completely dropped the ball with these guys,” said a law enforcement source. “They made mistakes that let two very dangerous men back on the street.”
Brockington was also charged with two other rapes — an attack on a drunk woman at a Soundview party in 2003 and a 1997 rape of a prostitute.
He has been in jail since his arrest in 2009, but after pleading down to attempted assault in the 2003 case, Brockington will be let go with time served and avoids having to register as a sex offender.
“Based on the evidence at the time of the plea, we were certain this was the best outcome that could be achieved,” said Reed.
The DA’s office would not discuss why it failed to prosecute.
Bronx “Teflon rapist”
3 raps botched
By JAMIE SCHRAM and DOUGLAS MONTERO
February 17, 2012, 3:32 a.m.
Last updated February 17, 2012, 4:45 a.m.
New York Post
A Bronx man whose DNA was matched to three sex attacks is set to walk free thanks to a botched prosecution and a string of evidence problems, The Post has learned.
In one case against accused Brian Brockington, the charges were dropped after prosecutors failed to file indictment paperwork against him until one day after the statute of limitations had expired, sources said.
The legal battles against Brockington began when he was taken into custody in 2007 on an unrelated matter, and a DNA swab linked him to three brutal sex attacks in 1993, 1997 and 2003.
In the first attack, three thugs viciously raped a 28-year-old woman in a playground on Dec. 5, 1993, court papers show.
The victim went to police, and DNA evidence was recovered at the time, sources said.
In 2002, officials tested the 1993 rape kit under a new policy to examine all DNA evidence and bring indictments, even if no arrest was made.
On Dec. 4, 2003 — the day before the 10-year-statute of limitations on the case would expire — prosecutors obtained an indictment against a “John Doe” who matched the DNA from the 1993 kit.
But in a massive mistake, the prosecutors failed to properly file the paperwork until Dec. 6, 2003.
After the Brockington DNA hit in May 2007, he was charged with the 1993 rape and remanded to jail. A short time later, he was charged in connection with the other two attacks.
It wasn’t until February 2010 that Bronx prosecutors realized they had missed the filing deadline for the 1993 case and were forced to drop that charge.
The Bronx DA’s Office couldn’t give a reason for the one-day delay.
Brockington also caught legal breaks in two other cases — a 1997 sexual assault on a Story Avenue rooftop and a 2003 rape in an apartment on Watson Avenue.
DA spokesman Steve Reed said charges in the 1997 rape were dismissed earlier this month over “evidentiary problems” that he did not disclose.
In the 2003 case, an indictment on charges including first-degree rape and sexual abuse and first-degree attempted sodomy were reduced to attempted assault in a plea deal.
The victim in that case told The Post that she refused to testify.
Yesterday, Brockington was sentenced to 1 ¹/‚ƒ [sic] to four years in prison on a plea deal. Because of the four years he spent in jail after his original arrest, he was expected to be released quickly.
Brockington’s lawyer, John Sandleitner, declined to comment.
[Thanks to reader-researcher RC for this story.]
3 comments:
Yesterday, I visited a college professor acquaintance of mine. He says "poor black kids have no chance in the legal system."
David In TN
I don't leave the house without my Walther or my J frame S&W. I encourage everyone to do the same.
The news is totally bias and messed up. I know for a fact that he was incarcerated since 2007 and not 2009 like thier trying to say. He might look guilty but I seriously doubt these so called rapes really happened
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