Naythen Aubain - Perjury / False Accusation

Aubain, Naythen ; weapon possession/sale; NRE: plea, perjury/false accusation, no crime, police officer misconduct, withheld exculpatory evidence, misconduct that is not withholding evidence

NRE synopsis (by Maurice Possley):

"On March 2, 2016, a guard accused 26-year-old Naythen Aubain, an inmate at the Auburn Correctional Facility in Auburn, New York, of illegally possessing a shank.

"The guard, 33-year-old Matthew Cornell , reported that Aubain was caught carrying the weapon during a search.

"Aubain contended that he was innocent and that the weapon had been planted. Nevertheless, on October 26, 2016, he pled guilty to possession of the shank. He was sentenced to two to four years in prison, to be served consecutive to the sentence he was serving for a prior second-degree robbery conviction.

"In December 2016, Cayuga County District Attorney Jon Budelman revealed that Cornell had admitted planting a weapon on a different inmate at the Auburn prison."

"Because of Cornell's admission, the inmate involved in that incident was not charged with a crime. However, Budelman then asked a Cayuga County...judge to vacate the convictions of Aubain and four other inmates, all of whom had pled guilty even though they claimed at the time that the weapons had been planted. Cornell was the guard who said he found the weapons in all five cases.

"On January 19, 2017, Aubain's conviction was vacated and the charge was dismissed.

"That same month, the convictions of Thomas Ozzborn , Sean Gaines , Donnesia Brown , and José Muniz also were vacated and the charges were dismissed."

[ Matthew Cornell is hardly the only c.o. at Auburn (and elsewhere) who routinely planted weapons on inmates. (See Department of Corruptions section.)]

[There are yet more cases in which a correctional officer helped to convict innocent people. Also see Thomas Bianco , where an Auburn lieutenant claimed at trial that the man he saw with the subsequent murder victim had -- like Bianco -- 'high cheekbones' -- despite previously stating that he had never seen the man's face because the latter had his back to him. And then we have the case of Kin-Jin ('David') Wong . There, it was a c.o. who coached a witness to provide more damning testimony.]

[All emphases added.]