Suffolk judge declines to dismiss 30-year-old robbery conviction

A Suffolk County Court judge has declined to vacate a man's robbery convictions, ruling there's no proof 30 years later that police and prosecutors withheld evidence that would have led to an acquittal.

Rodolfo Taylor, now of Brooklyn and formerly of Central Islip, served 26 years in prison for a series of gas station robberies in 1984 in the Central Islip area. At two trials, witnesses identified him as the robber, but he said he didn't find out until 2005 that several of them had previously identified different people as the robber. He argued that if a jury had known that, it likely would have acquitted him.

Judge Stephen Braslow initially refused to consider Taylor's argument, but after the Appellate Division Second Department ordered him to hold a hearing, he did so in July.

Taylor, who was released from prison in 2010 and attended the July hearing, said then he wanted his name cleared.

In his decision, issued last week, Braslow wrote that so much time has passed since the two trials in the mid-1980s that no one involved could recall if Taylor's trial lawyer, Martha Rogers, was notified of the other identifications.

Rogers testified at the July hearing that Taylor's trials focused on witness identification, but she could not recall what paperwork the prosecution gave her before those trials.

"Her independent recollection of the cases was fragmented and sketchy at best," Braslow wrote. "Similarly, the prosecutor had no clear recollection of the case."

Braslow wrote there is not enough evidence to find the prosecution withheld evidence.

"This court cannot overturn two jury verdicts based on mere speculation and that is what the defendant is asking this court to do," Braslow wrote.

Taylor's appellate attorney, Kirk Brandt of the Legal Aid Society, said he would appeal again.

"It's been a long, arduous, 30-year journey for Mr. Taylor, and he still has faith in the criminal justice system," Brandt said.

The Suffolk district attorney's office declined to comment, but in court papers, Assistant District Attorney Guy Arcidiacono argued that Taylor waited too long -- more than 20 years -- before filing a Freedom of Information Law request to get the witness statements identifying other people.

And in any case, Arcidiacono wrote in court papers that those statements wouldn't have made a difference. Neither robbery trial would have ended differently, he wrote, maintaining, "Any error was harmless."