The Weak Evidence that Sent a Mass. Man to Prison for 36 Years
A Massachusetts jury awarded $33 million to Fred Weichel on Tuesday after he spent 36 years in prison for murder before the charges against him were dismissed in 2017. While incarcerated, Weichel was stabbed by inmates on two occasions and was hit by another inmate with an object, breaking his jaw, which required surgery.
Weichel was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of Robert LaMonica, who was killed on May 31, 1980, shortly after midnight. No physical evidence connected Weichel to the crime.
Massachusetts law prevents Weichel from collecting more than $1 million, despite the failure of the Braintree Police Department to disclose a police report written and signed by hand by Detective James Leahy in 1980.
This piece is not a complete accounting of all the controversial evidence in Weichel 's case, but a selection which that highlights how soft some of the evidence was.
In contrast, the Leahy report was not evidence against Weichel, but evidence never present to the court that questions supported his claims he was not responsible for the murder .
The Leahy Report and Rocco Ballizo
In the report, Leahy wrote that a source known to him for several years called him on June 6, 1980, and said there was no doubt in his mind that a composite sketch published in a local newspaper was of a man named Rocco Ballizo.
Ballizo was incarcerated at MCI Bridgewater in 1980, serving a life sentence for the murder of a mother and her two-year-old son. Ballizo was released for a weekend furlough less than 24 hours prior to the murder and never returned.
Leahy also wrote that he took the composite sketch to MCI Bridgewater and showed at least 10 guards who all agreed they all thought it was Ballizo.
During closing arguments at Weichel's trial, the prosecutor held the composite sketch and a photo of Weichel side by side. One feature after another, they argued the faces resembled each other. Had the defense been aware of Leahy's report, they could have used athe same tactic with an image of Ballizo.
In the decision to grant Weichel a new trial in 2017, the Norfolk Superior court wrote that if the prosecutor had known of Leahy's report, "it would have all but precluded the Commonwealth from inviting the jury to engage in a binary comparison of (Weichell's} face with that of the composite image."
The source of the composite image is also problematic.
The Single Witness
John Foley was one of four young adults at Faxon Park who heard four shots the night of the shooting. They also saw a man run from the parking lot, where the shooting took place, to the passenger seat of a waiting vehicle.
Foley said he was able to observe the man's face as he passed under a streetlight, from at least 180 feet away, after drinking several beers. A composite sketch that was released to the media was created from information provided exclusively from Foley. . He told police the man was tall and weighed 180 pounds.
Weichel is 5'7" tall and weighed 155 pounds. Foley was the only person to identify Weichel as the man running from the scene at trial.
When a woman with Foley on the night of the murder was asked at trial to identify the man running from the scene, she pointed to the victim's brother, who was in the courtroom.
At the time of the trial, Foley was facing criminal charges for multiple offenses. He testified that he had not been offered consideration for his testimony. However, under cross-examination, he admitted that his cases were "waiting till my other court things get over with... including this courtroom right here."
Despite his criminal record, six months after trial his sentence allowed him to avoid jail time.
Weichel's Motion for a New Trial in 2022
In January 2002, Weichel filed a motion for a new trial on the grounds another man confessed to the murder.
In 1982, Thomas Barrett, a friend of Weichel, wrote Weichel's mother a handwritten note confessing to the to the murder of LaMonica and stated Weichel was not involved. He also wrote that Weichel was aware he committed the murder.
At the hearing for Weichel's motion, a former girlfriend of Barrett testified that he had also confessed to her.
Weichel testified that notorious Boston organized crime leader James "Whitey" Bulger and his associate, Stephen Flemmi, warned him multiple times against implicating Barrett in the murder. He also said that two individuals went to his mother's house to search for Barrett's letter. Weichel had instructed his mother to hide the letter and never disclose its contents, based upon fear for her life and the lives of other family members.
In 2004, a Norfolk County Superior Judge granted Weichel's motion for a new trial. The decision was appealed to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which overturned the Superior Court decision and denied Weichel a new trial.
On April 10, 2017, a Norfolk Superior Court judge again granted Weichel's motion for a new for the second time. Like his previous motion in 2002, the Superior Court decision was again appealed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
On July 21, 2017, the Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the Superior Court's decision and granted a new trial.
The charges against Weichel were dropped on August 7, 2017.
Image: Weichel's Legal Team (left to right): Attorney Mark Reyes (Loevy & Loevy Attorneys at Law); Paralegal Carmen Gunn-Knight (Law Offices of Howard Friedman, P.C.); Frederick Weichel; Attorney Howard Friedman; Paralegal Monica Fuentes (Loevy & Loevy) and Attorney Quinn Rallins (Loevy & Loevy)