Raymond Mora et al - False Accusation

Mora, Raymond AND Rodriguez (aka Vasquez), William AND Villalobos, Amaury ; murder, arson; NRE: perjury/false accusation, no crime, false/misleading forensic evidence, inadequate legal defense

[444:981]; Kings Cty. Ct. 9/21/81; motion granted/denied in part

"During the early morning hours of February 7, 1980 a fire occurred at 695 Sackett Street, a building in which Hannah Quick resided. Six children perished in the blaze. Detective Ralph Morgan was assigned to investigate the fire and responded to the scene...Gorman was given the name of a suspect, Marty, and informed where he lived...When he arrived at Marty's house, Gorman asked him if he was Marty, to which the latter responded affirmatively. Gorman then drove him to an area on Fifth Avenue near Sackett Street. At that location, Hannah Quick and a fire marshal were seated in another car. Gorman asked Marty to get out of the car. Marty complied with the request, whereupon Gorman received a prearranged signal from the fire marshal to indicate that the right Marty was being detained. Gorman spoke to Quick, who told him that this person was one of the indivduals in the building at the time of the fire. Accordingly, Marty was taken to the 78th precinct. At the precinct, at approximately 4:00 A.M., Quick informed Gorman that immediately before the fire three individuals had been in the subject premises; Marty who was already in custody, as well as Flako and Chino. She stated that she had known these individuals for two years before the fire. For the eight to nine month period before the fire, they would come to her apartment (which she characterized as a 'shooting gallery') as much as three or four times a day to inject drugs.

"Gorman learned that Marty's name was Amaury Villalobos...Villalobos admitted having been at the subject premises a month earlier and to knowing Chino and Flako.

"Later that morning, Detective John Walker picked up Flako and Chino...Flako identified himself as Raymond Mora and Chino as William Vasquez."

[530:159] [Vasquez]; 2nd Dept. 6/27/88; affirmed

"[W]e are satisfied that the verdict was not against the weight of the evidence..."

1997 WL 469990; E.D.N.Y. 6/17/97; writ denied

"The prosecutor's evidence at trial consisted of an eyewitness, Hannah Quick, who testified that she had known the defendants for over a year, and that on the night before the fire, one of the defendants called her a 'black bitch' and said that he was going to 'burn [her] up tonight.'...Quick also testfied that she heard defendants' voices and saw them running from the building just seconds before the conflagration."

N15 [9] "In 1980, a fire erupted in a three-story Brooklyn townhouse, killing 27-year-old Elizabeth Kinsey and her five children.

"At the time the building's owner, Hannah Quick, was facing charges that she operated a 'shooting gallery' in her apartment where people came to get high on heroin. She said that she had previously argued with one or two men over a bad batch of drugs.

"Police charged three men with murder and arson: 25-year-old Raymond Mora, 30-year-old Amaury Villalonos, and 34-year-old William Vasquez.

"They went to trial in [Brooklyn] in 1981. Quick testified that following the argument, one of the men threatened to burn the building down. She told a jury that she was awakened by a noise, looked out her window and saw three men leave just before an explosion rocked the building.

"The state fire marshal assigned to investigate the blaze concluded that the fire started at two separate locations on the first floor, indicating that the fires were set intentionally.

"In addition, he said areas of low buring along the baseboards indicated that the fires started there. 'Fire can't travel downward. Fire travels up,' he testified. According to the fire marshal, puddle shapes on the tiles -- called pour patterns -- and the fact that the baseboards had burned down to the ground level indicated an accelerant was used."

[10] "Defense lawyers failed to introduce evidence that laboratory tests found no traces of accelerants in the debris.

"Mora's and Villalobos's wives testfied that they were with their husbands at the time the fire broke out. All three were convicted by the jury. They were each sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

"Their appeals were denied. Mora died in prison in 1989. Villalobos and Vasquez -- who lost his eyesight in prison because of untreated glaucoma -- were released on parole in 2012.

"That same year arson expert John Lentini examined the fire records and concluded that the fire martial's determination that there were two separate fires was incorrect. That mistake was based on what was known about fires in 1981.

"In the spring of 2015, investigators for Brooklyn [DA] Ken Thompson's Conviction Review Unit located Quick's daughter who said that before Quick died in 2014, she admitted she had lied about seeing Mora, Vasquez and Villalobos and that she regretted sending three innocent men to prison.

"In December 2015, Villalobos and Vasquez were back in [County Court], where their convictions -- and Mora's -- were vacated and the charges were dismissed."

NRE synopsis (by Maurice Possley):

"In March 2017, Villalobos and Vasquez settled compensation claims against the city and state of New York for a total of $30.9 million. A claim filed by Mora's family against the city was settled for $1 million, and a separate claim against the state was settled for $400,000.

[All emphases added unless otherwise noted.]