BY ALEX ELLEFSON | Prosecutors will take another swing at securing a conviction in the infamous Etan Patz case when the retrial begins Sept. 12.
The first case against Pedro Hernandez — the 55-year-old former Soho bodega clerk who confessed to strangling the 6-year-old in 1979 — ended in a mistrial last year when a lone juror refused to convict.
Less than a month after the trial fell apart, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. vowed to retry Hernandez.
A lot has happened since then. Barely a month before the upcoming retrial, a Supreme Court justice overturned a 2004 wrongful-death judgment that found convicted child molester Jose Ramos civilly liable for Patz’s death.
The $2.7 million ruling was largely symbolic since Ramos was never criminally convicted. But Hernandez’s defense team used evidence from that case to undercut prosecutors’ arguments against the former clerk.
However, Hernandez’s lawyer, Harvey Fishbein, told The Villager that the decision to overturn the civil case will not have an effect when the retrial begins. He said he will continue to argue that Ramos is the more likely suspect.
Even though evidence from the civil ruling was introduced in the case against Hernandez, the 2004 wrongful-death judgment was never mentioned in court, the New York Times reports.
Hernandez was arrested in New Jersey in 2012 after authorities received a tip that he had previously mentioned killing Patz.
Police were able to get a confession out of Hernandez, in which he admitted to killing the boy and dumping his body in a Thompson St. alley. But the defense argued he had mental health problems and low intelligence, and that the confession was coerced.
Patz was one of the first missing children to appear on a milk carton after he vanished during his first unaccompanied walk to the school bus stop. His body was never found and prosecutors never charged Ramos — the boyfriend of the Patz family’s babysitter — citing a lack of evidence.
When Vance ran for district attorney, he campaigned on a promise to reopen the high-profile case.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on whether the overturning of the civil court ruling would give them an edge.
