Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark today announced that she will move today to vacate
the conviction of a Bronx man in the 2009 murder of a teenage boy, after a review of the case
by the District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit determined that the defendant did not
receive a fair trial.
District Attorney Clark said, “Steven Odiase is serving 25 years-to-life for murder, but the
Conviction Integrity Unit has uncovered potentially exculpatory evidence that was not provided
to the defense at the time of trial. Because Odiase did not receive a fair trial, I will ask the Court
on Monday, April 17, 2017, to vacate Odiase’s conviction in the interest of justice so he can be
freed as soon as possible while we determine whether to retry him.
“The unearthing of the exculpatory evidence highlights the value of a Conviction Integrity
Unit (CIU). The unit did an exhaustive re-investigation of this case, which involved the
senseless killing of a 15-year-old boy.”
The hearing on vacating the conviction will take place at 2 p.m. today before Bronx Supreme
Court Justice Steven Barrett in Room 300 in the Bronx Hall of Justice.
Odiase, 31, was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison after a trial in Bronx Supreme Court
in 2013. He was convicted by a jury of second-degree Murder and second-degree Criminal
Possession of a Weapon in the fatal shooting of 15-year-old Juan Jerez, who was shot at the
corner of Minerva Place and Creston Avenue on June 12, 2009.
His co-defendant, Daikwan Giles, confessed to the shooting, and was identified by
eyewitnesses. He was convicted in the same trial.
Odiase’s lawyers filed a post-conviction motion to set aside the verdict in July 2015, and
then in 2016, his attorneys Pierre Sussman, Jonathan Edelstein and Robert Grossman asked the
CIU to review the case and agreed to stay the motion.
Assistant District Attorney Risa Gerson, a veteran appellate defender who joined the CIU
in September, 2016, was given the case and reviewed hundreds of documents and interviewed
key witnesses. Gerson discovered in the case file a DD5 (a detective’s form summarizing the
canvass of the murder scene) that apparently was not provided to the defense.
Gerson turned it over to the defense in February, 2017. In March, 2017, Sussman told
Gerson that Odiase’s defense team had been given the DD5, but information had been redacted
from their version. The missing information was a witness’ description of the shooter that did
not match Odiase.
