The Latest News on Michayl's
case - March 21, 2003 | Return to Michayl Rivera's Homepage |
The Latest News on Michayl's
case - March 21, 2003
DNA Tests Cast Doubt on Broward Man's Conviction, Death Sentence
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - A man sent to death row for murdering an 11-year-old girl could get a new trial because DNA tests show the hairs used to link him to the crime did not belong to the victim, the man's lawyer said Friday.
Michael Rivera was convicted in 1987 of the abduction and murder of Staci Jazvac, a Lauderdale Lakes girl who vanished while riding her bike to the store for school supplies.
"We told Michael about the DNA results and he's very happy," said Marty McClain, a death penalty lawyer who represents Rivera.
McClain was optimistic that his client would get a new trial. The hairs were the only significant scientific evidence linking Rivera to Staci's disappearance on Jan. 30, 1986. She was asphyxiated, her body dumped in a Coral Springs field.
Prosecutors focused on two hairs found in a van during their opening and closing statements to the jury, and a crime-lab technician testified that the hairs "could be concluded as being" from Staci's head. The blue van belonged to a friend of Rivera, and Rivera sometimes drove it.
But mitochondrial DNA testing, unavailable at the time of Rivera's trial, proved conclusively this month that there is no match. In the genetic review, the March 11 report from independent tester Mitotyping Technologies excluded Staci as the source of the hairs.
Former Broward County prosecutor Kelly Hancock, who tried Rivera, downplayed the significance of the hairs in a case he considered strong. "It was a very insignificant piece of evidence," said Hancock, who is now in private practice.
Rivera had admitted exposing himself in public, making obscene calls and accosting young girls. He made a series of ominous statements to a polygraph detective, including, "Every time I get into a vehicle, I do something terrible."
A former boss testified that Rivera had made crank calls to her and admitted the murder.
But McClain hopes to add the DNA findings to other evidence not available in Rivera's previous trial, such as the testimony of Mark Peters, who now swears he had the van the night of the murder, not Rivera.
The DNA findings cast doubts on a high-stakes Broward Sheriff's Office case for the second time this week. A federal judge Wednesday overturned the conviction of Timothy Brown for the 1990 slaying of Broward Sheriff's Deputy Patrick Behan, saying that investigators had violated his right to remain silent and that new evidence points strongly to another man as the real killer.
Broward inmate who helped in death case called
chronic liar
BY WANDA J. DeMARZO AND DANIEL de VISE
Published Sunday, April 8, 2001
From years of dealing with home invasion specialist Frank
Zuccarello, Broward's top homicide investigator is convinced
he is a habitual liar, ``an untrustworthy witness who should
not be believed under oath or otherwise.''
Broward Sheriff's Office Maj. Tony Fantigrassi said so in a
sworn affidavit.
But that same Broward Sheriff's Office used Zuccarello's
testimony to put a man on Death Row.
The BSO homicide unit is now under fire. Several cases are
under review after DNA evidence exonerated a Death Row
inmate who died of cancer while awaiting execution.
Among them is the case of Michael Rivera, who was put
away with the assistance of Zuccarello. An admitted flasher
who fancied wearing women's clothing, making obscene
phone calls and accosting young girls, Rivera found himself
in jail at the same time as Zuccarello.
Rivera's attorney says Zuccarello, now 36, was a key
witness in the 1987 trial. Rivera was charged with killing
11-year-old Staci Jazvac, who was pulled from her bicycle,
murdered and dumped in a field.
Zuccarello buoyed the case with his story of a jail-cell
confession. The well-spoken felon stands by his story.
``Why would he say he did it if he didn't?'' Zuccarello said.
``He was a sick individual who said he killed that little girl
and a jury of his peers found him guilty. I would testify again,
if I had to.''
Fresh doubts about Zuccarello's testimony have Rivera's
lawyers bombarding the courts with petitions for a new trial
and for DNA testing on a hair sample from Rivera's van. A
DNA test would prove whether the hair came from Staci's
head.
``It is quite disturbing that you have a situation where
someone in the Broward Sheriff's Office is acknowledging
that Zuccarello cannot be trusted to tell the truth,'' said
Marty McClain, a Death Row attorney representing Rivera.
``And yet they let him take the stand and used him to help
send Michael Rivera to death.''
Sheriff's officials declined to discuss the Rivera case, citing
the ongoing DNA probe.
``It wouldn't be appropriate for us to discuss details of this
case until the review is complete,'' said spokeswoman
Cheryl Stopnick.
Stopnick said BSO detectives take care when using
information from jailhouse witnesses.
``We always will listen to whatever anyone has to say, but
we're always extremely cautious and careful with information
we get from someone who is in jail,'' Stopnick said. ``Many
times people in jail would like to cut some kind of a deal or
make a bargain.''
Fantigrassi met with Miami-Dade prosecutors in 1989 to
voice concern about Zuccarello and eventually signed an
affidavit stating he had ``serious doubts about the claims
that Frank Zuccarello made'' in an unrelated Dade murder
case. The affidavit was dated Feb. 4, 1999, more than 10
years after Rivera was convicted. But it referred to events as
early as 1984.
Prosecutors downplay Zuccarello's role in Rivera's case.
``I think I'd have convicted him without the three jailhouse
people,'' said Kelly Hancock, a former prosecutor now in
private practice, of Zuccarello and two other prison
witnesses. ``I did not think Zuccarello was my main witness
in that case.''
In April 1986, Rivera and Zuccarello shared a cell at the
Broward jail. Zuccarello was charged with home invasion
robberies, Rivera with exposing himself and the attempted
rape and murder of an 11-year-old Coral Springs girl.
Rivera soon found himself facing an even more serious
charge. Staci Jazvac disappeared on Jan. 30, 1986, while
riding her bike to the store to buy school supplies in
Lauderdale Lakes. Her body was found 15 days later in a
field in Coral Springs.
Apart from Zuccarello's testimony, there was not a lot to link
Rivera to the murder -- except a rambling, unrecorded
statement made to detectives over a period of several days.
Zuccarello, then a personable, 22-year-old felon, gave some
of the most dramatic testimony in the Rivera murder trial.
With every answer on the witness stand, he tied up another
loose end in the prosecution's case.
He testified that Rivera confided in jailhouse conversations
that he had abducted Jazvac ``to fondle her, to molest her''
and had choked her to death when she struggled.
Zuccarello, reached last week at his home, said he can
hardly remember the trial.
``I can't say if he was guilty or not,'' Zuccarello said. ``I don't
know if he really did it or not or if he was fantasizing and
getting his jollies when he told me what he did.''
Some veteran investigators say the Rivera testimony was a
familiar ploy for Zuccarello, a man known for leading police
to other criminals and, in turn, getting reduced sentences.
Zuccarello was charged with 23 felonies, including home
invasions, armed robberies and kidnappings, when he met
Rivera. He was sentenced to five years on a plea agreement
and got out of jail after 2 1/2 years. ``He knew the system
and was playing the system,'' said Steve Emerson, a special
agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement who
knew Zuccarello, speaking to The Herald in 1999.
Zuccarello admitted during an unrelated murder trial in Miami
that he enjoyed a special relationship with Miami police --
they had taken him out of jail so he could attend a Dolphins
game, get haircuts and visit his girlfriend's house, where
detectives waited outside while Zuccarello and his girlfriend
had sex.
Fantigrassi, then a BSO homicide detective, met Zuccarello
while investigating the 1984 murder of Charles Hodek, who
was discovered slumped over the steering wheel of a car
with three gunshots to the head in South Broward.
The Hodek investigation went nowhere until 1986. But the
tide turned when Zuccarello was booked into the Broward
County Jail as a suspect in a string of home invasion
robberies. Zuccarello quickly gave up his pals -- a gang of
thugs who ripped off drug dealers in their own homes after
threatening to shoot their genitals.
Then Zuccarello started talking about two other murder
cases: Hodek and Stanley Cohen, a wealthy developer from
Coconut Grove.
Zuccarello claimed to know who had killed Hodek. But
Detective Fantigrassi said Zuccarello's statements didn't ring
true and, in 1988, Zuccarello admitted to lying and falsely
implicating a suspect in the 1984 Hodek murder.
Zuccarello also implicated two men in the well-publicized
1986 Cohen murder. Cohen was shot while sleeping in his
home March 7 of that year.
For months, Zuccarello traveled back and forth between
Broward and Miami-Dade counties meeting with detectives
and prosecutors on the Hodek, Cohen and Rivera cases.
During one jaunt to Miami-Dade, Zuccarello flunked three
Miami police lie detector tests about the sequence of events
the night Stanley Cohen was shot. Four weeks later, he
would tell Broward cops that Rivera had admitted killing
Staci Jazvac.
Fantigrassi tried to discourage prosecutors from using
Zuccarello as a key witness in the Cohen trial, but
prosecutors still did.
Only Fantigrassi knows why he felt strongly enough to send
the 1999 affidavit regarding Zuccarello's role in the Cohen
case. Fantigrassi did not return several phone calls.
Colleagues say he is known as a fastidiously ethical cop.
Defense attorneys say the Zuccarello saga underscores a
larger problem.
``I think it's almost a given that snitches are used to get
convictions, particularly in cases that are weak,'' said
Barbara Heyer, a Broward County criminal defense attorney.
The only significant physical evidence prosecutors presented
during the Staci Jazvac trial was a sample of dirty blond hair
found on the bed of a van Rivera sometimes drove. A BSO
forensic expert said it could have come from Staci Jazvac,
but maybe not.
The strongest testimony came from Detective Thomas
Eastwood, who administered more than a dozen polygraphs
to Rivera over an eight-hour period. Eastwood said the
polygraphs were inconclusive.
Between polygraph exams, Eastwood said Rivera told him,
``Every time I get into a vehicle, I do something terrible.''
According to Eastwood, Rivera then confessed to a different
crime -- the attempted rape/murder of the 11-year-old girl in
Coral Springs -- and began to cry.
``Tom, I can't stop myself,'' Rivera said, according to
Eastwood. ``I can't control myself. Either kill me or put me in
jail because I'm going to keep on doing what I'm going to do
if you don't stop me.''
Zuccarello was one of three jailhouse witnesses who
testified at Rivera's trial.
A fellow prisoner named Peter Salerno testified that Rivera
told him, ``I didn't mean to kill the little Staci girl . . . I just
wanted to look at her and play with her . . . I seen her on a
bike and she excited me.''
Another cellmate, Bill Moyer, testified that Rivera confided to
him in jail that his alter-ego, ``Tony,'' had killed Jazvac.
Their testimony was of questionable worth.
Salerno had testified as state's witness in at least 10 other
trials.
Moyer, who testified he was speaking out of concern ``for
my children and everybody else's children in the world,'' was
being held for sexual battery on his stepdaughter.
The rest of the case hinged largely on crank calls Rivera
placed to local women.
Starr Peck, his former boss, testified that Rivera, posing as
`Tony,' told her by phone, ``I've done something very terrible.
I killed her and I didn't mean to.''
But some details didn't match the facts. Rivera told Peck he
had dumped Staci's body by Lake Okeechobee. The body
was found in Coral Springs.
The defense contended no evidence firmly tied Rivera to the
crime.
But when the weeklong trial was over, on April 16, 1987, the
Broward jury found Rivera guilty of the Jazvac slaying.
Its unanimous vote two days later: Rivera should die.
Broward homicide investigator at center
of DNA controversy
BY WANDA J. DeMARZO
Since December when it was announced that DNA evidence
had posthumously cleared a Broward County man who had
died of cancer on Death Row, the Broward Sheriff's Office's
homicide unit has come under intense scrutiny.
The spotlight has focused on Richard Scheff, a veteran
homicide investigator and former head of the unit who is
accused of lying on the witness stand about the case he
built against Frank Lee Smith.
Meanwhile, several defense attorneys have questioned
whether, in light of the Smith case, Scheff and the homicide
unit he led might have built cases based on coerced
confessions and shaky eyewitness testimony.
Scheff, who began as a patrol officer and rose to become the
leader of BSO's internal affairs unit, was shifted to an
administrative job recently while a special prosecutor
investigates the allegation of perjury.
Sheriff's officials contend that, apart from the Smith case, no
one has presented them with any formal accusations
against Scheff or the homicide squad.
``If someone has a concern or allegations about the way we
do business, they should bring it to our attention. The sheriff
wants to know about that,'' said Cheryl Stopnick, BSO
spokeswoman.
Scheff declined to be interviewed.
In the wake of the Frank Lee Smith controversy, Sheriff Ken
Jenne has called for DNA tests to be performed on seven
inmates, six of them on Death Row. Of the seven inmates,
Scheff was the detective assigned to two of the cases:
Lancelot Armstrong and Michael Rivera, and the supervisor
on two others: Dwayne Parker and Lewis Lawrence. Scheff
headed the unit when one of the inmates, Robert Consalvo,
was charged with murder.
The six men are the only current Death Row inmates that
BSO investigated.
NEW CHALLENGE
The agency's critics say the BSO effort rings hollow.
``Police can't police police,'' said Terry Backus, a Death Row
attorney representing Lancelot Armstrong, whose case is
now under BSO review.
The newest challenge to a BSO murder conviction comes in
the case of Michael Rivera, sentenced to death in 1987 for
the murder of Staci Jazvac. His attorneys claim the
conviction rested on statements Scheff testified to that were
taken out of context and implied Rivera's guilt in the murder,
and the testimony of a jailhouse snitch.
``There was nothing to tie [Rivera] to it except his supposed
statement,'' said Marty McClain, a Death Row attorney
representing Rivera. ``It all depended on Scheff and his
partner's testimony, on whether you believe them or not. The
only physical evidence was a hair follicle that a BSO
forensics examiner concluded was consistent with Staci's
known hair.''
McClain says the Rivera case shows a pattern typical of
several controversial BSO murder convictions: It rests largely
on a confession obtained by Scheff's homicide squad.
The Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, a group of public
defenders located in Tampa, Tallahassee and Fort
Lauderdale representing Death Row inmates, filed two
motions in Broward County Circuit Court on Wednesday
asking the state to reveal all evidence it has on Rivera. The
group, represented by McClain, also seeks any information
discovered by the state that would impeach Scheff's
testimony in Rivera's trial and DNA testing on the hair
follicle.
HAIR FOLLICLE
DNA testing would prove conclusively if the hair follicle found
in a van that Rivera was known to use really came from
Jazvac, McClain said. At the center of the legal skirmish is
Scheff, a man who earned a reputation for cracking the
tough cases during his two-decade rise in the BSO.
Several high-profile cases involving Scheff are now being
questioned:
Frank Lee Smith was sent to die in prison for the murder
of 8-year-old Shandra Whitehead after an eyewitness in the
1985 murder case testified at two appeal hearings that
Scheff had pressured her to identify Smith while never
bothering to show her a photo of Eddie Lee Mosley, accused
of rape and murder, who roamed the same northwest Fort
Lauderdale neighborhood where the young girl was raped
and killed.
That testimony is now being investigated by a special
prosecutor appointed by the governor, at the request of
Broward State Attorney Michael Satz.
Smith was exonerated last year after he died of cancer in
prison.
Peter Dallas, Stephen Rosati and Peter Roussonicolos
were indicted in September 1990 and charged with the
murder of Joseph Viscido Jr. of Deerfield Beach. BSO's
homicide unit took over the 4-year-old murder case from
Deerfield Beach in 1990 and within four months they thought
they had their killers. Dallas confessed to the killing and
implicated Rosati and Roussonicolos. Scheff and lead
detective Steven Wiley interviewed an eyewitness who later
said she was harassed by the detectives into identifying
Dallas from a photo lineup.
Scheff and Wiley presented the case to the state attorney's
office, which led to the indictment of Dallas, Roussonicolos
and Rosati. The trio spent almost two years in jail.
But the case dissolved after a former Florida Department of
Law Enforcement special agent, Michael Breece, came
forward with new evidence implicating two other men in the
Viscido murder.
``I can see protecting your case and the credibility of your
case is very important, but there comes a time when you
have to say, `Hey, something's wrong here and we need to
look at it,' '' Breece said. ``But BSO didn't want to do that.''
The Broward County state attorney's office asked for a
special prosecutor to investigate the new evidence. Dallas,
Rosati and Roussonicolos were freed.
Timothy Brown and Keith King were convicted for the 1990
murder of Deputy Patrick Behan in Pembroke Park. Brown
was 14 at the time of the murder; King was 17. Attorneys for
Brown maintain their client's confession was coerced. Brown
was convicted Oct. 21, 1993, and sentenced to life in prison
without the chance of parole. King was sentenced to 15
years and was released in December 1999.
Federal public defenders for Brown have filed a petition in
Miami seeking a new trial, alleging Brown's confession was
coerced, that he waived his Miranda rights against
self-incrimination without understanding them, and that
Brown's mother was not allowed to speak with her son
during his interrogation. Scheff testified at a subsequent
court hearing that Brown's mother, Othalean Brown, did not
want to see her son during his interrogation. Othalean Brown
says she asked to see her son, but was told by Scheff that
``he had been moved elsewhere.''
Michael Rivera was sentenced to death in May 1987 for
the murder of 11-year-old Staci Jazvac. The Rivera case is
another where attorneys contend a conviction was obtained
with an implied confession and the testimony of a jailhouse
snitch. While awaiting trial for the murder of Jazvac, Rivera
was convicted and sentenced to life for the kidnapping and
attempted murder of an 11-year-old Coral Springs girl. The
11-year-old gave a poised demonstration of the attack for the
jury, pausing only when asked to identify Rivera as her
assailant -- she could not. Rivera is on Death Row pending
an appeal.
Richard Scheff joined the Broward Sheriff's Office in 1980 at
the age of 29. He was the oldest cadet in his class at the
South Florida Criminal Justice Department. As a young
man, Scheff owned a company that installed alarms in
homes and businesses. But he said another career kept
calling him.
``When you're a kid, you want to be a police officer, a jet
pilot or an Indian chief,'' Scheff told The Herald in a 1998
interview.
``I never quite got over the desire to be a police officer.''
His personnel file is brimming with commendations,
including Deputy of the Month for his ``outstanding
performance'' in the Frank Lee Smith case and a letter
congratulating Scheff and the homicide unit on their
exceptional rate of cleared cases.
Scheff was a detective with the homicide unit from 1983 to
1985. He then was promoted to sergeant and supervised the
unit from September 1986 to January 1990. Then, promoted
again, he headed the unit until 1993. Another promotion put
Scheff in charge of the criminal investigation unit, which
oversees all major crimes, robbery, homicide, sexual
assaults, until 1997.
Sheriff's officials say they don't know enough about Scheff's
casework to determine his exact role in each investigation,
how ``hands on,'' Scheff was.
``The direct supervisor for the detectives in the homicide unit
is the sergeant and he is responsible for the day-to-day
operations and the overseeing of the detectives and their
cases,'' said Jim Leljedal, BSO spokesman, describing the
job Scheff held in general terms.
JUGGLING CASES
``The sergeant is aware of the cases his unit is handling and
what each of his detectives is doing in each homicide
investigation.''
The homicide unit now comprises eight to nine detectives
led by two sergeants. Ten to 15 years ago, when Scheff
directly oversaw the unit, the homicide squad typically had
six to eight detectives with only one sergeant, Leljedal said.
Each detective handles two to three cases at any one time.
Breece concurs that juggling several homicide investigations
simultaneously makes it difficult for detectives to devote a
great deal of time to any one case, sometimes forcing them
to act quickly.
``There is no better feeling for a law enforcement officer than
to know he did things right and got a good conviction,''
Breece said.
``The Peter Dallas case was one of the highlights of my
career and one of the lowest, because no one wanted to
admit they had made a mistake and ended up making it
personal by attacking me and my credibility.''
Herald staff writer Daniel de Vise contributed to this report.
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