DA Erases Timoshenko Suspect Interview

The prosecution of Robert Ellis — the man who allegedly killed Officer Russel Timoshenko in PLG last July — just got a little harder. An audio technician in the Brooklyn DA's office accidentally taped over a custodial interview that Ellis gave to a detective. Whoops. The DA still has the detective's notes of the interview and a follow-up interview that was videotaped (make a backup!), but the spoliation of evidence can only hurt the prosecution.

Celebrity defense attorney Ron Kuby's advice to the DA? "... put the poor schlub on the witness stand, so they can say to the jury, 'You heard this man, he explained what happened, and he feels as bad about this as anyone." Which is good advice, and not the kind of thing that defense attorneys usually tell the DA. Isn't that a violation of some kind of guild code?

(Via Gothamist)