Queens DA Too Slow On ’93 Murder Case, Monserrate Says
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City Council Member Hiram Monserrate yesterday criticized the Queens district attorney’s office for having taken five months to find lost records from a 1993 murder case.
Mr. Monserrate, a Democrat of Queens, for years has been campaigning for further investigation into the slaying of Manuel Mayi, an 18-year-old Queens College student. Mayi, a Dominican, was beaten to death in 1991 after writing graffiti in a predominantly Italian neighborhood in Queens. Although witnesses say there were five killers, only one man, Joseph Celso, stood trial. He was acquitted.
“The lack of prosecution in this case sends a clear message to our community that justice is not fair and blind for all,” Mr. Monserrate told The New York Sun. He alleged that the killers had mafia connections. The police started reinvestigating the murder in 2002. Last April, they presented the DA’s office with an order to unseal Mr. Celso’s trial records. Mr. Monserrate was informed in August that the office had “misplaced” the records, though in a letter dated September 8 the DA’s office told him that “as a result of the unsealing order, our file is now available” to the police.
“We’re talking about a case that’s over a decade old,” a spokesman for the Queens DA, Kevin Ryan, said.
