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Jurors Weigh Fate Of Man Accused Of Robbing 3-Year-Old
By
Ben Yakas
Published Jul 7, 2010
Modified Jul 7, 2010
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Jul 7, 2010
Modified Jul 7, 2010
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In the pantheon of petty criminals, there are your granny-attackers, your "pint-sized punks," and of course your classic vampire robbers. But none of them compares to the man who assaulted a three-year old developmentally delayed girl last year—for her necklace.
Jury deliberations have begun today in the case of Mariah Rodriguez, a toddler attacked in June 2009 near her East 106th Street apartment. Not only was she left with marks around her neck from the attacker's violent yanking of her gold necklace, she also had bruises on her head and body from falling to a stairwell floor. Anthony Faison, 33, an ex-con from Middletown, NY, was arrested, but he insists cops framed him by mishandling forensic evidence and coercing him into a confession.
According to the Post, prosecutor Colleen Walsh said that Faison was unemployed and desperate for money when he chanced upon the little girl: "He saw an opportunity. He saw a little girl who was alone inside a building." Police also found his DNA on Mariah's pink dress, and detectives believe Faison may also have been attempting to sexually assault her when neighbors searching for the girl interrupted him.
Faison's lawyer claimed that a fantastical series of events led to the DNA mix-up: His DNA was on a water bottle that was tossed into a trash compactor, where it then rubbed off on a diaper, which cops pulled from the trash mistakenly thinking it was the girl's; then the DNA traveled from the diaper to the dress when the two were packaged in adjacent brown paper evidence bags. Walsh scoffed to the jury, "Somehow, magically, through all these different ways, the defendant's DNA got on the back of the dress."
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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