Round 2 Set After Defendant Wins Appeal
By Patrick Fanelli pfanelli@post-journal.comChautauqua County prosecutors are pursuing charges against suspected drug dealer Charles Fredrick, whose 2006 conviction was recently reversed on appeal after he served more than two years in a state prison.
''We'll go to trial against this guy if we have to,'' said Chautauqua County District Attorney David Foley, whose office was admonished for prosecutorial misconduct by the judges who heard the appeal.
Fredrick was convicted in June 2006 for allegedly selling drugs to a confidential informant working with the Southern Tier Regional Drug Task Force.
The confidential informant was Robert Texeira, 35, who is serving a minimum three-year sentence at Attica Correctional Facility for second-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance.
Despite his criminal history, prosecutors will have to rely on Texeira to once again convict Fredrick - and defense attorneys could try to cast doubt on Texeira's testimony by using that against him at trial.
Foley is hopeful Texeira's criminal history won't matter much since confidential informants are usually drawn from those who have intimate, firsthand knowledge of the drug trade and the criminal underworld.
''It's not an unusual situation to have a confidential informant who has a criminal history,'' Foley said. ''You're not sending in the pope.''
Fredrick's conviction was overturned on appeal since Jason Schmidt, the assistant district attorney arguing the people's case, improperly vouched for Texeira and the police officers who testified at trial, according to the appellate ruling.
It wasn't the first time a conviction won by Schmidt had been reversed on appeal because of allegations of prosecutorial misconduct. A few weeks after Fredrick was found guilty, Chautauqua County Judge John Ward reversed the conviction of a defendant found guilty of endangering the welfare of a child and second-degree unlawfully dealing with a child - a case argued at Fredonia village court.
In his decision, Ward admonished Schmidt for twice answering a juror's question during jury selection - something that is expressly forbidden by the courts - and for calling the defendant a predator during summation.
Ward also admonished Schmidt for ''urging the jury to apply a different standard of proof than reasonable doubt'' and for ''implying disdain for the very legal principle upon which our criminal justice system is based'' by likening the doctrine of reasonable doubt to ''legal mumbo jumbo.''
According to Foley, the number of cases that get reversed on appeal is a drop in the bucket compared to the thousands of cases that come through his office every year, though far fewer end up going to trial.
''We open 7,000 cases a year and a considerable number of them end up going to trial,'' Foley said. ''We're not going to run perfect trials every time.''
Fredrick is out on bail awaiting his trial date, which is set for Nov. 18. According to Chautauqua County Public Defender William Coughlin, whose office will represent Fredrick, bail was set for $10,000 cash and $20,000 property bond.
Coughlin was critical of the fact that bail had been set at all considering Fredrick's financial capabilities after serving a total of three and a half years before and after his conviction, especially since Fredrick would have little to lose by seeing the trial through to the end having already served so much of any potential sentence.
Foley said he would normally push for bail in the amount of $25,000 and $50,000 for someone with two felony charges like Fredrick, and he believes there is always the risk a defendant will flee the jurisdiction, necessitating that bail be set.
