The New York Police Department falsely arrested two men and placed them in a room with a murder suspect in order to get the killer to confess, according to lawsuits filed by both men.
Aurelio Mandala and Daniel Corbett claim they were arrested on false charges on April 30, 2013, according to their lawsuits obtained by the New York Daily News. Police locked both men in a jail cell with another man from their same Queens neighborhood, who was also suspected of killing another man and burying him in his own backyard.
Mandala, 42, and Corbett, 39, had no choice but to listen to the suspect, Derek Tudor, relay how he suffocated a retired mailman and buried him in a grave he dug a week before.
It was only after both men were forced to write a statement about what Tudor said that they were released, according to the lawsuits filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Mandala, who filed his lawsuit last year, has already received an $18,000 settlement from the city. Corbett filed his suit last week.
"Mr. Corbett was an innocent victim here, falsely arrested and then confined to a cell for hours with a man suspected in the gruesome, Hannibal Lecter-style murder of Mr. Corbett's former mailman and neighbor," Gabriel Harvis, Corbett's attorney, told the newspaper.
Frank Soucie was found dead wrapped in a sheet in the backyard of his Putnam Avenue home. Soucie was Tudor's mother's boyfriend.
Mandala and Corbett were arrested near the Putnam Avenue crime scene. Mandala was arrested for not carrying identification and for arguing with a police officer, the Daily News reported. Corbett was arrested on charges of drug possession.
Once locked in Tudor's cell, both men pleaded with police to release them. They were released hours later after writing down the details of what Tudor did to Soucie, according to the lawsuits. Police also dismissed the charges against them.
The police's tactics, however, appeared to have worked. Tudor is currently serving a 20-year sentence after he pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in December 2013.
Corbett's lawsuit is still pending.
