10 Years Later, a Claim the Wrong Man Was Convicted of a Bronx Killing
As the chilly evening of March 30, 1997, stretched into early morning, an ambitious young killer from the Bronx named David Prieto was walking through a sketchy neighborhood?, gun at his side, Clint Eastwood style?, believing he was on his way to taking over the lucrative drug trade on the streets near his childhood home.
“Scarface Dave,” as he was known in the Parkchester neighborhood, did not fire a shot. But within a few hours, he spread word that he had returned from prison to take what he believed was his, recruited a trusted lieutenant and collected intelligence on the area’s reigning drug organization.
But things did not turn out as he planned. His lieutenant was shot dead, and Mr. Prieto soon was imprisoned on unrelated crimes. Another neighborhood man, Michael Clancy, was sent to prison for the lieutenant’s murder, and Mr. Prieto, who had once been comfortably unrepentant, says he was dogged by guilt.
More than a decade later, in a sealed courtroom in the Bronx, Mr. Prieto unburdened himself. The man in prison for the murder had not committed the crime, Mr. Prieto said. The real killer, he said, was a man whom he taunted an hour before the shooting.
A transcript of Mr. Prieto’s testimony is among documents being filed today by Mr. Clancy?s lawyers to try to win Mr. Clancy’s release.
“An innocent man has spent 10 years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit, and a guilty man has gone free,” said one of those lawyers, Ronald L. Kuby.
The Bronx district attorney’s office however, which prosecuted Mr. Clancy in 2000, says Mr. Prieto’s testimony is not credible. They question why it took so long for him to come forward and argue that his story alone is insufficient to overturn Mr. Clancy’s conviction.
The prosecutors also note that two witnesses, one woman inside the pizza restaurant and another one who had been outside, identified Mr. Clancy as the killer.
“It’s important to be mindful that the so-called “new information” with which Mr. Prieto has come forward was available at the time of Michael Clancy’s trial, but Mr. Prieto refused to cooperate,” said Steven Reed, the Bronx district attorney’s spokesman.
A judge must now determine whether Mr. Prieto, 33, is a liar with an angle to play or is, as one of his lawyers, Lloyd Epstein, says, a changed man seeking a measure of personal peace. A hearing on the case is scheduled for Dec. 11.
Mr. Prieto, who has been in federal prison for crimes including murder, manufacturing narcotics and conspiracy, has said that freeing an innocent man was so important that he was testifying about the crime without the promise of witness protection or a shortened sentence.
During his testimony in September, he said the passing years had not assuaged his guilt about the death of his friend and lieutenant, John Buono, and the murder conviction of a near-stranger, Mr. Clancy.
“Well, you know, two people lost their life that night, you know, and it really hurts me,” he said.
Mr. Clancy, 33, who had no previous criminal record and has insisted he is innocent, is serving a 25-year sentence at a prison near Stormville, N.Y.
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