A good day for the good guys

Police Chief John Tedesco announces the arrest of
 three people for murder (TIMES UNION PHOTO)

I’ve been covering Troy for a long time and never have I seen anything like what transpired over the last couple of weeks.

Amazing, really.

A summer marked with arson, murder and other violent crimes had tensions at a breaking point throughout the city but nowhere were things more strained than in Lansingburgh.

And then a well-known, well-liked couple was bludgeoned to death – Al and Maria Lockrow on Aug. 20.

Police were under the gun. The media jumped on such stats like “the murder rate has increased 600 percent” from last year and “per capita Troy had the most murders in the state” and they were echoed across social media.

There were stories of parents afraid to send their kids a couple blocks to the store or the playground and gun shots rang out with the frequency of church bells. There were calls for more patrols, a reinstatement of an aggressive Street Crimes Unit and cries for someone to do something.

Then, on Friday police found the Lockrows’ blue SUV - stolen by the murderers - in a field in Columbia County. It was set on fire, presumably, to help the two killers hide their tracks. It also kicked off what has to be one of the best nights in TPD history.

While I’m told the car’s discovery didn’t lead investigators to seal the deal and arrest Jacob Heimroth and Daniel Reuter, they were Three days later. Early Monday evening, police made the first arrest. Later that night, about 9:30 p.m., they picked up the second suspect while he was walking around Lansingburgh. I’m not sure which one was first but it really doesn’t matter.

Also, on Monday, police arrested Jeffrey Brown, an 18-year-old from Cohoes, for the murder of Robert Rivera, a 54-year-old who was found shot to death in his Second Avenue apartment on June 30.

In one night, police arrested three people for murder. Amazing, really.  

The Lockrow crime scene

Police Chief John Tedesco said “this is huge for us.” He’s right. And it’s not only huge for the TPD but for the resident too. Fueled by fear and Facebook pages and sick of the empty political rhetoric, they were losing patience with the men in blue and their ability to keep their neighborhoods safe.

Rallies and vigils were held to “Take Back Troy, Tedesco and Mayor Lou Rosamilia, under increasing pressure to do something, put 20 extra patrols on the streets and there was the very real threat of people taking matters into their own hands.

Meanwhile, detectives were behind the scenes working the murders of eight people in the city this year (in two of the cases, two people were killed so it was considered one case.)

And that work paid off on Monday.

So far, police have arrested suspects in five of those cases. And while the murder of 19-year-old Vanessa Milligan and her unborn baby in April remains open, Tedesco indicated an arrest there is imminent too.

ROSMILIA

There are all sorts of possible motives for the Lockrow killings – the most brutal to happen in the Collar City in at least two decades – and I will explore them later. There are also some grumblings about how detectives broke the case – again, I’m told the car played a small role in it – and I will explore them too at a later date. There is also a lot of work to do because murders may be the highest profile crimes they are far from the most prevalent, thankfully.

Let me conclude by saying I’m one of the first ones to criticize cops for their Cadillac contract and their excessive OT and when they otherwise screw up. But for their work that culminated on Monday, the entire TPD deserves a round of applause.

Three arraigned in two separate murder cases in Troy

Three murder suspects were arraigned this morning in connection with two murder cases.

Daniel Reuter, a homeless 33-year-old, and Jacob Heimroth, of Troy, were arrested Monday for the beating death of Allen and Maria Lockrow. Both were formally charged with first and second degree murder on Tuesday, said Police Chief John Tedesco.

Both men were originally from Valatie.

Also, Jeffrey Brown, 18, of Cohoes, was charged with shooting to death Robert Rivera on June 30 at his 603 Second Ave. home in Troy.

The cases are slated to go to the Grand jury on Thursday, according to the Times Union.

The Lockrows were found brutally beaten at their 709 First Ave. home on April 20 after police answered what they thought was a routine domestic call.  

Police recovered the couples stolen SUV on Friday in Valatie. It had been set on fire, presumably to help hide any evidence.  

Here is a story from Channel 13.

 

Former Councilman John Brown will go to jail (DOCUMENT)

Former Councilman John Brown will head to jail for six months.

Brown, who pleaded guilty to felony criminal possession of a forged instrument during the infamous voter fraud scandal, agreed to the jail time as part of deal that included him testifying for the prosecution.

JOHN BROWN wile pleading guilty (TIMES UNION photo)

He appealed the sentence as harsh and excessive, but the Appellate Division, in a short two-page unanimous decision released today, said it was too late because he had waived his right to appeal as part of the deal.

“Furthermore, defendant signed a written waiver in open court that acknowledged that he had discussed the waiver with counsel and that he was knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently waiving his right to appeal his conviction and sentence,” according to the decision, which can be seen below.

The court remanded the case back to Supreme Court and Judge George Pulver for sentencing at a future, undisclosed date. Brown could get a straight six months or he could spend six months’ worth of weekends behind bars as was previously discussed.

Brown testified for special prosecutor Trey Smith in the trials of former Councilman Michael LoPorto and Board of Elections Commissioner Ed McDonough - the first they were tried separately and it ended in a hung jury, then they were each acquitted when they faced the jury on their own.

Brown, former City Clerk Bill McInerney, Democratic Party operatives Anthony DeFiglio and Tony Rena all pleaded guilty to their role in an attempt to steal the Working Families Party line by forging scores of absentee ballot applications envelopes and the ballots themselves in the 2009 primary. Councilman Gary Galuski and former Council President Clement Campana were indicted but those charges were later dropped by Smith.

Brown is the only one who will see jail time in the more than five year scandal. McInerney, who admitted on the stand he forged dozens of signatures, did time in the Sheriff's Department Work Release Program whild DeFiglio and Rena were sentenced to community service as part of their respective plea bargains.

It is expected McDonough will file a civil suit claiming selective and improper prosecution and LoPorto may as well.

 

 

 

Brown

You go after the shooter

COLEMAN

I think attorney Cheryl Coleman summed up voter fraud nicely when on Talk 1300 Sunday she compared it to a hypothetical murder case: “Why would you make a deal with the shooter to get the cab driver who waited outside the bank.”

Given that’s how the whole thing went down – evidenced by the fact former City Clerk Bill McInerney got on the stand and admitted to forging scores of Working Families Party absentee ballot and absentee ballot applications for the 2009 primary – I can see why former Councilman John Brown is upset by the fact he is the only one implicated in the scheme going to jail.

Late last year, Brown appealed his six-month sentence imposed by Judge George Pulver claiming it was harsh and excessive. Thing is, he waived his right to appeal when he pleaded guilty to possessing one forged ballot as part of the deal. Recently the prosecutor in the case, Trey Smith, replied to the appeal and the Appellate Division will rule one way or another.

As a kicker, as nothing is simple when talking about voter fraud, Brown also perjured himself in front of the Grand Jury so six months in jail to satisfy two felonies – plus who knows how many others he could have been charged with – so six months isn’t really harsh or excessive and he agreed to it. I’d be shocked if the court intervened in this one.

Of course, after seeing how everything else unfolded, with everyone who contested the charges getting off and the other three who pleaded guilty not looking at jail time, Brown is having second thoughts. Who can blame him for not wanting to go to jail while others are not?

McInerney admitted to doing far worse things than Brown but as Coleman said, McInerney was the first in line to cut a deal with Smith and Smith needed someone to spill the beans on Board of Elections Commissioner Ed McDonough and her client former Councilman Michael LoPorto.

But McInerney, who as part of his deal had to spend some time working on the Sheriff’s work order program picking up garbage or what not, was hardly the star witness Smith needed to convict McDonough or LoPorto. He admitted to committing the forgeries, but didn’t point the finger at anyone but himself, and he didn’t do that until he was granted a level of immunity that far outweighed the crimes he admitted to committing.

There are all sorts of conspiracy theories kicking around and one includes that Smith engaged in “selective prosecution” by going after McDonough, who is represented by attorney Brian Premo, and LoPorto instead of McInerney and those higher up in the Democratic Party who may or may not told him what to do in order to steal the WFP line for their candidates. It may or may not be true, but believing Smith was in the tank through all that voter fraud encompassed throughout the five-year ordeal is a tough concept to grasp and an even harder to prove. 

That’s the bottom line. I don’t see a grand conspiracy. I see a bunch of guys who desperately wanted to win the election – including Brown who was angling for Council president – wanted the WFP line that was routinely stolen by the GOP, had no idea how to go about it and the one who headed up their campaigns in the hopes of keeping his job or getting a better one – McInerney - ended up forging about everything in sight.

And then there was the less than stellar effort to prosecute them and in the end, McInerney was the proverbial shooter in Coleman’s analogy … and everyone else was driving the cab.