Jean Cantave - Perjury

Cantave, Jean ; 1) sexual assault; NRE: perjury/false accusation, inadequate legal defense, no crime, prosecutor misconduct, withheld exculpatory evidence, misconduct that is not withholding evidence, prosecutor lied in court; 2) assault; NRE: perjury/false accusation, no crime

[1) and 2) are two separate cases involving the same defendant. First, the sexual assault case:]

1) NRE synopsis (by Maurice Possley):

"On November 25, 2006, 42-year-old Jean Cantave was arrested on charges of raping a tenant who was living in his home in Queens, New York.

"The woman had come to New York from Haiti and Cantave, who had emigrated from Haiti, agreed to allow her to stay in a room in the home. The woman claimed that Cantave came to her room to talk about the non-payment of rent and for heating bills and that he sexually assaulted her.

"The woman's initial report came on the morning of November 24 after her father called and wanted to know why she had failed to come to see him and her mother on Thanksgiving -- which was also her mother's birthday that year. She said she had been assaulted by Cantave. Her father drove down from Westchester, and took her to a police station to file a report. The woman, who was in her 20s, was then taken to a hospital for an examination.

"At the hospital, the woman gave varying accounts of what happened. At one point, she said Cantave shoved her down a flight of cement stairs leading from the kitchen to the basement and stabbed her in the abdomen with a barbeque fork, although she had no apparent bruises or scrapes or stab wounds. Her account of the sexual assault began with her saying that he penetrated her with his fist. But then she said he didn't penetrate her and finally said he penetrated her 'a little bit' with his penis through a hole in her pajamas.

"In June 2008, Cantave went to trial in Queens County...At the prosecution's request, his defense lawyer stipulated that no semen was found on the pajamas.

"The woman testified that during an ordeal that lasted from one to two hours, she was stabbed with a fork (although there was no evidence of any wounds), pushed down the stairs and that he had inserted his penis in her vagina through the hole in her pajamas. She said he also groped her breasts as she struggled.

"Cantave testified and denied the allegations. He said he spent Thanksgiving with his sister, a few miles away from his home.

"On June 23, 2008, Cantave was convicted of rape and sexual abuse. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

"In April 2011, the Second Department Appellate Division reversed the conviction and ordered a new trial. The court ruled that Cantave's defense lawyer had provided an inadequate legal defense by failing to use the medical reports of the woman's various accounts to impeach her testimony."

"Cantave was assigned a new defense attorney for his retrial -- Lori Zeno from Queens Defenders. Zeno asked to view the pajamas. The prosecution said -- as it had during the appeals process -- that the pajamas could not be located. However, when Zeno said she would request a jury instruction that the evidence was missing through the fault of the prosecution, the pajamas were suddenly located in an evidence locker. Zeno discovered that there was no hole in the pajamas.

"She further learned that when the complainant testified before the grand jury, she reported that nothing had been taken as evidence by police from Cantave's home where she said the assault occurred. At the prosecutor's direction, she had retrieved the pajamas that were turned over to the lab, Zeno learned."

"Zeno then requested the forensic records which had been stipulated to at the first trial. She discovered that when the pajamas were sent to the lab, a technician reached out to the detective on the case to inquire which tests should be performed. The technician wrote in the notes that the detectives said no tests should be done because 'there was no rape.'"

[Recall this sentence from further above (5th paragraph): "At the prosecution's request, [Cantave's] defense lawyer stipulated that no semen was found on the pajamas." The reason why no semen was found is that the detective told the technician not to perform any tests. Thus, in Cantave's first trial, the prosecution 'suckered' his defense lawyer into making this (cynically) prosecution-abetting, grossly misleading statement.]

"Zeno also discovered that the prosecution had turned over phone records for Cantave's phone number prior to the first trial which the defense had failed to utilize, apparently because they did not support Cantave's account that he was at his sister's home for Thanksgiving. Zeno investigated and determined that the records were for the wrong phone -- there was one digit incorrectly recorded. The phone number belonged to a woman in Manhattan. Zeno obtained the correct phone number and cell phone tower analysis showed that in fact Cantave was not near his own home and was near his sister's home as he had always claimed.

"Armed with this evidence, Cantave went to trial a second time in February 2012. At the conclusion of the trial, the jury acquitted Cantave and he was released."

2) assault

NRE synopsis (by Maurice Possley):

"On November 19, 2007, police arrested 43-year-old Jean Cantave and charged him with assaulting 33-year-old Andre Elbresius, who said Cantave bit off part of his ear during a confrontation at Cantave's used car lot, God First auto sales, in Queens, New York."

[Cantave was arrested for this (supposed) crime just shy of one year after he'd been arrested for the sexual assault discussed above. (But Cantave had not yet gone to trial on the sexual assault charges.) Therefore, he must have been out on bail at the time of the used car lot confrontation.]

"In October 2009, Cantave went on trial [for the 'simple' assault] ...The prosecution's case rested primarily on testimony from Elbresius, his wife, Beatrice, and Dr. Mary Doumas.

"Elbresius testified that on November 5, 2007, Cantave, a neighbor whom he had known for about a year, asked for a favor. Cantave wanted Elbresius to drive him to a car auction on Long Island. Elbresius said that Cantave agreed to give him money for gas because his vehice, a Ford Explorer, was low on fuel.

"[Elbresius] testified that he waited in his vehicle when they got to Patchogue, about a 90-minute drive from Queens, while Cantave went to the auction. When Cantave came out, Elbresius said he asked if he had any tools. Elbresius said he had some in the back which was unlocked.

"Elbresius said that Cantave retrieved some tools and put them back about five or ten minutes later. Elbresius said he then saw Cantave drive away and noticed that the rear license plate for the Explorer [i.e., Elbresius' own car, which they'd driven over there] had been put on the back of the car that Cantave had just purchased at the auction.

"Elbresius said he tried to catch up to Cantave, but could not because his Explorer vibrated badly at speeds over 50 miles an hour due to a previous accident. However, Elbresius said he spotted Cantave at a gas station and pulled up, yelling at him that he was almost out of gas. He said Cantave threw a $20 bill out the window and took off.

"Elbresius told the jury that he drove home to take his wife to work. When she got off later that evening, he called Cantave and asked to meet. Elbresius said he was concerned that Cantave might have gotten a citation that would be linked to the license plate from the Explorer.

"He said he and Beatrice drove to the car lot and confronted Cantave, who gave him his license plate back. They began exchanging words. Then, Cantave pushed Elbresius and Elbresius pushed him back.

"Beatrice got out of the car and stood between them and began telling them to let it go and go home. She said that Cantave suddenly 'lunged' over her shoulder and bit Elbresius's left ear. She said neither she nor her husband could dislodge Cantave for 30 seconds to a minute. And when Cantave finally let loose, he bit the middle finger of Elbresius's right hand."

"Cantave's defense attorney sought to introduce a recording of a 911 call made by Cantave during which Cantave said he had been assaulted by Elbresius and his wife and that Elbresius had a gun. The prosecution objected, arguing that it came several minutes after the incident, giving Cantave time to come up with a cover story of self-defense."

[In a civil case, Cantave alleged that the altercation was initiated by Elbresius, and that Elbresius struck him three times with his gun. ]

[If true, Elbresius's story about Cantave 'borrowing' his license plate certainly doesn't augur well for Cantave's character. However, which is the more believable scenario leading up to Cantave's chewing off a portion of Elbresius's ear: 1) that, after Beatrice got out of the car and told Elbresius and Cantave 'to let it go and go home,' the latter then 'suddenly lunged' over her shoulder and bit Ebresius's ear; or, 2) Elbresius pulling a gun on Cantave caused the latter to desperately fight him off any way he could?]

"Although Cantave claimed he had a broken nose, bloodied mouth and a bite on his hand, he made no mention of the injuries, the trial judge noted. As a result, the judge declined to allow the tape to be played. The judge noted that unless Cantave testified, the tape would be prohibited hearsay evidence. The judge rejected the defense contention that the tape was an 'excited utterance,' an exception to the hearsay prohibition.

"When the defense said that Cantave wanted to testify to give his version of the incident, the prosecution said it would cross-examine [him] about a 2008 rape conviction. [See 1) above.]...The defense noted that the conviction was being appealed and argued that questioning Cantave about it was improper. The judge rejected that argument and said he would permit the prosecutor to question him about the rape conviction.

"Consequently, Cantave did not testify. On November 2, 2009, the jury acquitted Cantave of the second-degree assault charge and convicted him of third-degree assault -- a misdemeanor. He was sentenced to one year in prison to be served concurrently with the 20 year sentence in the rape case."

"[T]he Appellate Division upheld Cantave's assault conviction. But in June 2013, the New York Court of Appeals reversed the assault conviction. The court held that the trial judge erroneously said the prosecution could cross-examine Cantave about the rape conviction which was still on appeal."

"Subsequently, the prosecution agreed to dismiss the case if Cantave were not arrested for six months. In 2014, when the six-month period had ended, the charge was dismissed."