NEW YORK — Decades before Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Malcolm Koonce was born, his father served time in prison for an armed robbery conviction that prosecutors now acknowledge was tainted by a detective’s false testimony and “highly suggestive” photo identification methods.
On Friday, a judge in suburban New York agreed with the findings, overturning 67-year-old Jeffrey Koonce’s conviction and dismissing his indictment. This decision comes more than 40 years after the 1981 robbery at the Vernon Stars Rod and Gun Club in Mount Vernon.
Koonce, who spent nearly eight years in prison, has consistently maintained his innocence, asserting that he was nowhere near the club where three individuals were injured by shotgun pellets and patrons were robbed of cash and jewelry.
Westchester County District Attorney Mimi Rocah supported the motion to overturn Jeffrey Koonce’s conviction after her office uncovered significant issues with the case.
An investigation by Rocah’s Conviction Review Unit into the 1983 conviction revealed that Mount Vernon police had pressured the sole victim-witness to implicate Koonce. They also manipulated the photo identification process by making Koonce’s picture larger than the others in the array and neglected to interview alibi witnesses who supported his claim of being elsewhere during the crime.
A Mount Vernon detective falsely testified about the composition of the photo arrays during pretrial hearings and at Koonce’s trial. Following these revelations, a court ordered the department to revise its suggestive photo identification procedures. One of the detectives involved in the case was later imprisoned as a result of a federal corruption investigation.
In a statement, Rocah said Koonce’s conviction “was tainted by such questionable investigatory processes and procedures” that her office could no longer uphold it.
Jeffrey Koonce and his attorney, Karen Newirth, appeared before Westchester County Judge James McCarty on Friday to request the vacating of his robbery and weapons possession convictions, along with the dismissal of the underlying indictment.
“Today marks the end of a 41-year injustice, as Mr. Koonce is finally vindicated in court. DA Mimi Rocah and her team should be commended for their commitment to seeing justice done for Mr. Koonce,” Newirth said in a statement.
During his original trial, Koonce fled the court while the jury was deliberating. He was apprehended about seven months later, found sleeping on his girlfriend’s couch in the Bronx, according to contemporary news reports.
Koonce was sentenced to 7½ to 15 years in prison for the robbery and served a concurrent, shorter sentence for bail jumping. He was released on parole in August 1992. His younger brother, Paul, who was a high school sophomore at the time, was also charged in connection with the robbery but was acquitted.
Malcolm Koonce was born in 1998, years after the events that led to his father’s wrongful conviction. The Las Vegas Raiders drafted him into the NFL in 2021. Another of Jeffrey Koonce’s sons, Dejuan Koonce, is a retired New York state trooper who served on protective details for Gov. Kathy Hochul and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Police accused Jeffrey and Paul Koonce of being among three men who held up the Vernon Stars Rod and Gun Club on June 20, 1981. According to police reports, patrons were forced to lie face down and surrender approximately $500 in cash, jewelry, and other valuables. One of the assailants wielded a sawed-off shotgun, firing at least two rounds that injured a 15-year-old and two other patrons.
An investigation by Westchester County District Attorney Mimi Rocah’s office revealed that detectives used questionable methods to pressure a victim into identifying Jeffrey Koonce as the shooter—the only person to do so. Other witnesses told investigators it was too dark inside the club to identify the perpetrators by their faces.
The victim, a high school freshman at the time, initially selected Koonce from a photo array that featured Koonce’s image enlarged compared to smaller photos of other men who bore little resemblance to him. Later, the witness admitted to Rocah’s office that he couldn’t recall seeing anyone’s face in the dark club and that his view was obstructed after other patrons shielded him following the gunfire.
Detectives further compounded the issues by bringing Koonce to the hospital where the witness was being treated, urging him to identify Koonce in person. During a pretrial hearing, the witness testified that he felt pressured to make a quick identification. The trial judge described the procedure as “impermissibly suggestive.”
Additionally, Rocah’s office found that Mount Vernon detectives failed to interview all of Koonce’s alibi witnesses. Among them was a now-retired New York City police detective who confirmed that Koonce was with him in the city on the night of the robbery.
Leave a Reply