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A Brooklyn District Attorney’s office “illegally” and “forcibly” interrogated and detained witnesses, this according to new information filed in a $150 million lawsuit. The new details set to prove that D.A. Charles Hynes’ office committed corruption for more than a decade.  Jabar Collins, a Brooklyn man whose murder conviction was overturned by a federal judge after serving 15 years behind bars, filed the massive wrongful conviction suit against the office. “Hynes’ office was running a private jail system where witnesses were illegally interrogated and forcibly detained indefinitely,” read court papers.

Collins’ lawyer Joel Rudin describes the environment as told by the deposition of Christopher Salsarulo, an ex-investigator in the D.A.’s office, now working as a U.S Drug Enforcement Administration agent.

The office allegedly disregarded proper protocol calling for witnesses to be taken to court so as not to be “potentialy” coerced by the D.A. “There are circumstances where the person will say, ‘I’m not coming. Now way,’ And then…we would immediately handcuff them and take them away,” Salsarulo said, according to the deposition.

The reveal of important witnesses in Collins’ case being threatened and detained against their will by prosecutor Michael Vecchione led to the formerly convicted killer’s freedom in 2010. He was accused of murdering a Brooklyn rabbi, but a key witness recanted their original statement before the trial, details of which the D.A.’s office claimed to have not learned until years later.

Hynes’ office has not commented on the latest allegations. Although not named as a defendant in the suit, he has refused to testify against one of his star prosecutors.

 

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