Court upholds conviction of Nassau police officer Arthur Lopez's killer
Darrell Fuller, center, leaves Nassau police headquarters in Mineola for his arraignment on Oct. 25, 2012. Credit: Howard Schnapp
An appellate court has upheld the murder conviction of a Queens man who killed a Nassau police officer and a parkway motorist in 2012 after fleeing a crash scene while on parole.
A judge sentenced Darrell Fuller, 39, to life in prison without parole after a Nassau jury’s 2014 verdict convicting him in the Oct. 23, 2012, slayings of Officer Arthur Lopez and union construction worker Raymond Facey, who had lived in Brooklyn.
The Second Judicial Department of New York State’s Appellate Division affirmed the conviction in a decision Wednesday after an appeal by Fuller.
Nassau District Attorney Madeline Singas said in a statement reacting to the decision that the court confirmed what already was known to be true.
“Darrell Fuller is guilty of killing a brave detective and an innocent motorist. This defendant showed no mercy to his victims and was rightfully sentenced to life without parole . . . Our thoughts now — and forever — are with the families of Detective Lopez and Mr. Facey,” Singas said.
Fuller’s attorney had argued, in part, in the appeal that some DNA test results had been disclosed too late and prosecutors hadn’t established a proper chain of custody for DNA blood evidence.
The appellate court’s decision also said the trial judge made the right call in admitting testimony that Fuller had been on parole at the time of the slayings in order to establish his motive for the deadly shootings.
Lopez, who was posthumously promoted to detective, was 29 and a decorated eight-year police department veteran who served on the force’s elite Emergency Service Unit and lived in Babylon Village.
Facey was a 58-year-old husband, father, grandfather and Jamaican immigrant.
The motorist had pulled over on the Cross Island Parkway to speak to his daughter on his cellphone about a family vacation when Fuller carjacked and killed him after fleeing from shooting Lopez during a traffic stop near the Nassau-Queens border that followed a police pursuit.
