NEW YORK — The case of a bodega clerk charged with murdering an ex-con who attacked him behind the counter is generating more controversy for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
A bipartisan group of City Council members is demanding the case be dropped, CBS2’s Marcia Kramer reported Friday.
Prosecutors may have to go to the video tape to see what’s on it and what’s not in deciding how to handle the hot potato case of bodega clerk Jose Alba, who fatally stabbed a man who went behind the counter to menace him.
“Mr. Alba’s attorney has said that off camera the person that came down the counter, his girlfriend, showed a knife and that that’s why deadly physical force was needed,” said Brian Wagner, a defense attorney and former prosecutor.
Wagner, who spent seven years as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, told CBS2 the case will probably hang on whether Alba’s decision to stab 37-year-old Austin Simon was proportionate to the threat.
“It’ll come down to, does video surveillance show that and whether or not a jury believes that deadly physical force was needed because a knife off camera was shown,” Wagner said.
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