OAG/OAG Report on the Investigation into The Death of Edson Thevenin

OAG/OAG Report on the Investigation into The Death of Edson Thevenin

OAG/Report on the Investigation into The Death of Edson Thevenin

TROY – Mayor Patrick Madden's administration expects to hire expensive law-enforcement shooting experts as the city mounts a defense against a federal unlawful death lawsuit filed by the widow of a Watervliet man killed by a police officer during a 2016 DWI traffic stop.

The City Council Law Committee will be briefed Thursday about the city's plan to pay an initial retainer of $2,500 to a firm of retired law enforcement officials for a preliminary review of the fatal April 2016 shooting.

“They’re going to be expensive,” Corporation Counsel James A. Caruso said Monday.

Cinthia Thevenin is suing the city in U.S. District Court in Albany over the April 17, 2016 fatal shooting of her 37-year-old husband, Edson Thevenin, by Sgt. Randall French, who fired multiple shots from his service pistol, killing Thevenin. Troy police defended the shooting, saying Thevenin’s vehicle was a weapon against French.

The city has hired John D. Aspland and Asish Nelluvely of the Fitzgerald, Morris Law Firm in Glens Falls to defend the municipality and French.

The forensic shooting and accident experts were recommended by Aspland, Caruso said. He declined to name the firm and its members or to discuss the fees for forensic analysis while discovery for the trial is underway. The discovery deadline is May 31, according to docket entries in the federal file.

The Law Committee will get its first insights into how expensive the case will be when it meets at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at City Hall.

Caruso said the Law Committee was being briefed so the council members could understand the expenses the city will face. In addition to the law firm and the law enforcement experts, the city also is hiring a certified public accounting firm to analyze the financial claims for damages in the case.

The city’s costs are expected to mount to carry out its defense. The lawsuit is projected to have an eight-day trial, according to court records.

Caruso said the city will have to bear some of the costs before its insurance coverage takes over but he was not certain about what costs the city must pay. Councilman Mark McGrath said he understood those costs would be at least $250,000.

French will not face prosecution for the April 2016 fatal shooting, but state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in January in a detailed report contradicts the officer's version of events and criticizes the investigation conducted by the city police department.

The report chronicling Schneiderman's year-long investigation into the shooting death of Thevenin, 37, highlighted the controversial decision by Rensselaer County District Attorney Joel E. Abelove to secretly grant immunity to French when the officer testified before a grand jury that cleared him of wrongdoing.

The report concluded that because of the immunity agreement, "criminal prosecution of Sgt. French for the shooting would be impossible" under state law regardless of the attorney general's findings.

In addition, poor evidence gathering and other factors prevented the attorney general's office from being able to "disprove that Sgt. French's use of deadly force was unjustified," the report said.

The lawsuit, filed Sept. 13, 2016, against the city and French said: "At no time was Sgt. French, or any member of the Troy Police Department in physical danger when French opened fire into Edson's car."

“If the Troy police had body cameras, there's over a 90 percent chance we wouldn’t be in this situation,” said McGrath, a Republican.

Caruso spoke about the case after Madden, a Democrat, said the city would be as transparent as possible in dealing with questions about the federal lawsuit.

The analysis of where French was standing is expected to be an important part of the lawsuit. The attorney general’s office asked FBI to evaluate the shooting and also also hired Precision Simulations, a forensic investigation firm from California, to reconstruct the shooting scene for a report it issued into the shooting and the handling of the case by Abelove.

A county grand jury convened at the request of the attorney general indicted Abelove on a felony count of first-degree perjury and two counts of official misconduct for his role in presenting the shooting case to another grand jury.

Abelove is scheduled for a June 20 trial in Rensselaer County Court.