Change of Names Foiled in Court After Suspect Can’t Name Parents
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Jerome Coughlin was about to be sentenced to probation yesterday in return for a guilty plea to a minor drug-possession charge in Queens Criminal Court. It was expected that he would be freed from jail, the Queens District Attorney’s office said. Jerome Coughlin was about to be sentenced to probation yesterday in return for a guilty plea to a minor drug-possession charge in Queens Criminal Court. It was expected that he would be freed from jail, the Queens District Attorney’s office said. When Mr. Coughlin’s case was called, court officers brought a defendant from the cells near the courtroom and the session began. But suddenly the assistant district attorney, Mary Faldich, interrupted to tell Judge Sheri Roman that the defendant was not Mr. Coughlin, who is 25 years old. It was quickly determined that the man before the bench was Rene Tellier, 31, who was charged with attempted murder by trying to run over an off-duty New York City correction officer in Queens last December, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, Richard Piperno, said later. The two men had apparently put their heads together in the courthouse cells and had conspired to provide Mr. Tellier with enough information about Mr. Coughlin so that Mr. Tellier could pose as Mr. Coughlin, a spokeswoman for the Correction Department, Ruby Ryles, said. What’s Your Mother’s Name? But if Mr. Coughlin had briefed Mr. Tellier, he left out a few important facts, because when Judge Roman demanded that ”Mr. Coughlin” give the names of his mother and father, he was at a loss, Mr. Piperno said. Officials said they believed that Mr. Tellier hoped that after being sentenced as Mr. Coughlin, he would be released. They said Mr. Tellier had been taken from jail in Brooklyn yesterday to the courthouse in Kew Gardens for a proceeding in a second case in which he is charged with illegal possession of a weapon and reckless endangerment. Ms. Ryles said that before he was brought into the courtroom, Mr. Tellier gave correction officers information about Mr. Coughlin that led them to believe he was Mr. Coughlin. ”The department is investigating this matter,” Ms. Ryles said. She said Mr. Tellier, whose home address was not immediately available, has been in a Brooklyn jail. Mr. Coughlin, whose home is in Flushing, Queens, has been at the Queens House of Detention for Men. Judge Roman aborted Mr. Coughlin’s plea and both men were returned to jail. Source : query.nytimes.com |