Woman Now Denies Seeing Racial Killing
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NEW YORK — The “mystery witness” in the Bensonhurst case Tuesday retracted her statement that she had seen the racial killing of a black teen-ager, and prosecutors said her testimony will be of no use to their case.
The woman, who has identified herself only as Iris, met with prosecutors Tuesday morning and confirmed that she was retracting statements that she was a witness to the killing.
She had told reporters that she saw defendant Keith Mondello urge Joseph Fama to shoot the black youth.
Her statements led to speculation that prosecutors might at last have an impartial witness who could testify against the remaining six white men charged in the August, 1989, slaying of Yusuf Hawkins, 16. Fama has been convicted of murder; Mondello was convicted of lesser charges.
Brooklyn Dist. Atty. Charles Hynes said the woman and her husband met with prosecutors Tuesday morning. “It is now clear that she was not a witness to the events of that tragic night as she had claimed,” Hynes said.
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