Jury Convicts Brick Attack Defendant
N E W Y O R K, Nov. 30 -- — A street-hustling crack user with a lengthycriminal record was convicted Wednesday on charges of shattering aTexas woman’s skull with a six-pound brick on a mid-Manhattanstreet.
After two and-a-half days of deliberations and two notes declaring theywere deadlocked, the jury of 10 men and two women convicted ParisDrake, 37, of first-degree assault and criminal possession of aweapon.
Drake, who was acquitted of attempted murder in the attack,faces up to 25 years in prison when state Supreme Court JusticeLaura Visitacion-Lewis sentences him on Dec 13. He will likely facea minimum sentence of 12½ years.
Drake was accused of bashing Nicole Barrett, 28, in the headwith a paving brick on 42nd Street at Madison Avenue — a block fromGrand Central Terminal — on Nov. 16, 1999. According to trialtestimony, she was near death when hospitalized.
Barrett, who has no memory of the attack, attended the trialdaily with her mother, Sharon. They left after the verdict wasdelivered without making a comment.
One juror, who withheld his name, said reaching the verdict wasdifficult. “We didn’t want to send an innocent person to jail,”he said. “It was a hard decision” but continuous review of theevidence left them with no believable suspects but Drake, he said.
Shocked at the Verdict
Drake’s lawyer, Louis A. Zayas, said his client was “shocked”upon being found guilty of the two charges. Zayas had said hisclient was at his girlfriend’s Bronx apartment at the time of theattack and suggested that Drake had been a victim of mistakenidentity.
“He said, ‘I can’t believe this. How can they convict me when Ididn’t do this?’” Zayas quoted Drake.
The lawyer called the verdict “a tremendous miscarriage ofjustice, not consistent with the evidence.” He said he presentedseven witnesses to the attack who either could not identify Drakeor had identified someone else.
