Jimenez v. City of New York

25-776 Jimenez v. City of New York UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT August Term 2025 Argued: January 15, 2026 Decided: September 4, 2026 Docket No. 25-776-cv RICARDO JIMENEZ Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF NEW YORK, WENDELL STRADFORD, CHRISTOPHER HORN, BRONX COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, KAREN SERRANO-PAGLIA, AS ADMINISTRATOR OF THE ESTATE OF MICHAEL SERRANO Defendants-Appellees, MICHAEL SERRANO, Defendant. APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK Before: CALABRESI, LEE, and NATHAN, Circuit Judges. On appeal from an order and judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Buchwald, J.): In 2007, Plaintiff-Appellant Ricardo Jimenez was convicted of second- degree murder for the 1989 killing of Sean Worrell and was sentenced to twenty- two years to life imprisonment. In 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Oetken, J.) vacated Jimenez’s conviction, finding that it was caused by materially prejudicial Brady violations by the prosecuting attorney. In 2023, Jimenez filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeking damages for his wrongful conviction and incarceration. He brings malicious prosecution, fair trial, and failure to intervene claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the police officers allegedly responsible for his wrongful conviction. This includes the detectives involved in the original 1989 investigation and the detective responsible for a subsequent investigation beginning around 2000. He brings a Monell claim against the City of New York and the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office, alleging that his conviction was caused by a de facto municipal policy of failing to discipline prosecuting attorneys for ethical violations. He asserts New York state law malicious prosecution claims against all defendants. And he brings a New York state law negligence claim against the City of New York for its hiring, training, supervision, and retention of the defendant officers. In March 2025, the district court (Buchwald, J.) dismissed all of Jimenez’s claims with prejudice under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). The court found that the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office was an improper defendant. The court found that the state and federal malicious prosecution claims against all officers failed for several reasons, including that Jimenez did not plead facts sufficient to rebut the presumption of probable cause that attaches to a grand jury indictment. As to the fair trial claims against the officers responsible for the original investigation in 1989, the court found that Jimenez failed to plead the required “forwarding” element and failed plausibly to allege fabrication of evidence. As to the fair trial claims against the officer responsible for the renewed investigation in 2006, the court found that Jimenez failed plausibly to allege fabrication of evidence. The court found that the failure to intervene claims against all officers and the negligence claim against the City of New York failed due to the absence of any underlying predicate wrongdoing. And the court found that the Monell claim against the City of New York failed because any Brady violation was not sufficiently flagrant or intentional to give rise to Monell liability. We agree with the district court on several points. The Bronx County District Attorney’s Office was an improper defendant. The complaint does not [2] allege particularized facts sufficient to overcome the presumption of probable cause that flows from a grand jury indictment; as a result, the malicious prosecution claims were rightly dismissed. As to the officers involved in the original 1989 investigation, the complaint does not adequately plead that they forwarded any fabricated evidence to the prosecution; therefore, the fair trial claims against those officers were rightly dismissed. Finally, the failure to intervene claims fail because, as to the original investigating officers, the complaint does not adequately plead an underlying constitutional tort and, as to the officer involved in the renewed investigation, the claim has been forfeited on appeal. As to the remaining issues, we disagree with the court below. We find that Jimenez plausibly alleges that the detective responsible for the renewed investigation intentionally fabricated inculpatory evidence and forwarded it to prosecutors; therefore, we hold that the fair trial claim against that officer is adequately pled. Consequently, we find that the district court erred in dismissing the negligent hiring and supervision claim against the City of New York for lack of predicate wrongdoing. As to the Monell claim against the City of New York, we find that the district court erred by failing to credit the complaint’s plausible allegation that the Brady violations were intentional and, moreover, erred in holding that a Brady violation must be intentional to give rise to Monell liability. AFFIRMED in part, VACATED in part, and REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. JOSHUA D. KELNER, Kelner & Kelner, Esqs., for Plaintiff- Appellant. ALEX FUMELLI, Senior Counsel, New York City Law Department (RICHARD DEARING, REBECCA VISGAITIS, and TAHIRIH M. SADRIEH, of counsel on the brief), for Defendants-Appellees. [3] CALABRESI, Circuit Judge: I. BACKGROUND A. Factual Background The following facts are drawn from the operative complaint, including the evidentiary materials attached as exhibits to or incorporated by reference in the complaint. See Chambers v. Time Warner, Inc., 282 F.3d 147, 152–54 (2d Cir. 2002). For purposes of this opinion, we are required to assume the truth of all plausible factual allegations in the complaint and to draw all reasonable inferences from these allegations in favor of Plaintiff-Appellant Ricardo Jimenez. See id. 1. The Movie Theater Killing and the Initial Investigation. Shortly after midnight on July 3, 1989, a man named Sean Worrell was murdered at a screening of Batman in a movie theater in the Bronx, New York. The precipitating event was an argument that broke out in the concession line before the film. On one side of the argument was Worrell and several associates. On the other side was a man whose identity remains unknown. The argument ended when the unknown man exited the building, yelling, and Worrell and his associates took their seats in the theater. Soon after, as the film’s opening credits rolled, the unknown man entered the theater. He was now armed. He found [4] Worrell and his associates, at least some of whom were also armed, and engaged in a shootout with them. Worrell was shot and killed. In the ensuing confusion, the killer fled. The New York Police Department (NYPD) began an investigation, led by two detectives: Defendants-Appellees Michael Serrano and Christopher Horn. Detectives Serrano and Horn interviewed numerous eyewitnesses about what they had seen. The witnesses who observed the original argument in the concession line gave a consistent description of the unknown man. They reported that he was tall and thin, Black, wore gold jewelry, spoke with a Jamaican accent, and had blonde streaks dyed into the sides of his hair. One of these eyewitnesses was Esco Blaylock, a fifteen-year-old boy who was working at the theater on the night of the incident. Blaylock told Detectives Serrano and Horn that he witnessed both the confrontation in the concession line and the subsequent shooting; that he personally recognized the shooter, having known him by name for two years; and that the shooter’s name was Leon. Over a series of interviews, Blaylock provided extensive information about “Leon,” including his address, criminal history, that he was known to be violent, and that he dated a girl named Sharon Ramroop. [5]  On July 10, 1989, Detective Serrano located and interviewed Ramroop. According to Detective Serrano’s report, Ramroop stated that she did know someone named “Leon,” a “flashy dresser” of “Jamaican and Indian Extraction,” but did not indicate that she had ever dated him. App’x at 116. On July 11, 1989, the investigative event through which Detectives Serrano and Horn first equated “Leon” with Ricardo Jimenez occurred. An official account of this event is set forth in two contemporaneous reports written by Detective Serrano. The first one reads: SUBJECT: CONFRONTATION OF ESCO BLAYLOCK AND SHARON RAMROOP On July 11, 1989, in an effort to further identify “Leon”, Esco and Sharon were confronted in this office. Esco and Sharon exchanged information relative to the description originally furnished by the various witnesses. It now appears that Esco Blaylock knows this perpetrator as Leon, and Sharon Ramroop knew the perpetrator as Ricky. Id. at 117. And the second report reads: Subject: IDENTIFICATION OF “LEON” On July 11, 1989, at approximately 2030 hrs., Esco Blaylock and Sharon Ramroop were taken to CATCH. by the undersigned in the company of Det. Horn. Both, Esco and Sharon viewed photos. Sharon Ramroop identified a photo as that of Manuel Jimenez, indicating that his brother was Ricky, the person being sought. A search of the files produced a photograph of Ricardo Jimenez . . . . [6]  Mr. Esco Blaylock identified the photo of Ricardo Jimenez as the shooter in this case, and the person known to him as “Leon.” Sharon Ramroop stated that she knew this individual as “Ricky” . . . . Id. at 123. In sum, then, the official story is as follows: the detectives “confronted” Blaylock and Ramroop in the precinct and had them “exchange[ ] information”; it emerged from this “exchange” that the man known to Blaylock as “Leon” was known to Ramroop as “Ricky”; the officers showed Blaylock and Ramroop photographs; Ramroop, shown a photograph of Manuel Jimenez, indicated that he was “Ricky’s” brother; the officers located a photograph of Ricardo Jimenez and showed it to Blaylock; Blaylock identified Ricardo Jimenez as “Leon,” the shooter; the officers showed the photograph to Ramroop; Ramroop identified him as “Ricky.” The complaint asserts that this identification of Jimenez not only was false—Jimenez was not named Leon and was not the shooter—but was the result of intentional “coercion, suggestion, [and] inducement” by the detectives. Id. at 45. In particular, the complaint attacks the official story in three ways. First, the complaint presents evidence that Ramroop’s involvement was a fabrication. In March 2012, the attorney in charge at the Office of the Appellate Defender (OAD) obtained two handwritten, signed statements from Ramroop. [7] Beneath a photograph of Ricardo Jimenez taken in 1989, she wrote: “I do not know, and have never known, the person in this photograph. I never identified any picture of an individual known as Leon or Ricky, or any other person.” Id. at 121. And on a copy of Detective Serrano’s second report from the July 11, 1989, encounter (describing the identifications of Manuel and Ricardo Jimenez), she wrote: “I, Sharon Ramroop, have no recollection of making this statement or identifying a photograph of any person.” Id. at 123. Then, in October 2012, a private investigator hired by OAD interviewed Blaylock and, according to an affidavit signed by the investigator, asked him “if [Ramroop] was present when [Blaylock] was brought to the precinct to make a photo identification in 1989.” Id. at 126. Blaylock stated that she was “not present.” Id. This, if true, not only suggests that the official story of the July 11 identification was a fabrication—it also raises the question of how it happened that Detectives Serrano and Horn picked out the photograph of Ricardo Jimenez to show to Blaylock. Second, the complaint asserts that the official story, even if true, implies misconduct. For one, the reports give no detail as to how the officers “confronted” Blaylock and Ramroop—both of whom were teenagers [8] unaccompanied by their parents—and had them “exchange[ ] information.” Id. at 80, 117. Additionally, the second report implies that Blaylock’s identification of Ricardo Jimenez as “Leon” stemmed from a procedure in which Blaylock was shown only a single photograph, not a full array. Id. at 80, 123. “The practice of showing suspects singly to persons for the purpose of identification, and not as part of a lineup, has been widely condemned.” Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 302 (1967) (citing sources); see also Mysholowsky v. New York, 535 F.2d 194, 197 (2d Cir. 1976); United States v. Thai, 29 F.3d 785, 811 (2d Cir. 1994); Brisco v. Ercole, 565 F.3d 80, 88 (2d Cir. 2009). Finally, the complaint asserts that Detectives Serrano and Horn should have known, and in fact did know, that Jimenez was not the shooter. He was not named Leon, did not have streaks dyed into the sides of his hair, and did not generally match the description of the perpetrator given by all eyewitnesses. Nevertheless, on July 12, 1989—the day after the identification—Jimenez was arrested and detained in connection with the killing. But soon after, Blaylock declined to appear for a lineup and stopped cooperating. Rather than asking any of the other eyewitnesses to come into the precinct to identify Jimenez, the officers released him from custody. According to [9] the complaint, they did so because they knew that the “other witnesses, who had identified an entirely different person, would not identify [Jimenez] as the shooter.” Id. at 80–81. Indeed, on July 17, Detective Serrano interviewed an eyewitness named Lisa Salter, who was working at the theater during the incident and observed the argument in the concession line. Id. at 109. When Detective Serrano showed Salter a photograph of Jimenez, she indicated that she personally knew him and “had seen [him] on other occasions” but “he was not one [of] the males [who] had the argument at the concession stand.” Id. After Jimenez’s release, the case lay dormant for approximately a decade, during which Detectives Serrano and Horn retired from police work. 2. The Revived Investigation. Sometime around 1999, Defendant-Appellee Wendell Stradford, a detective in a special NYPD unit dedicated to investigating cold case homicides, assumed responsibility for the Worrell murder investigation. Soon after, the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office assigned Assistant District Attorney Lisa Mattaway to the case. [10]  Over the following years, Detective Stradford and ADA Mattaway, according to the complaint, used a combination of witness inducement, suppression of evidence, and other investigative and prosecutorial misconduct to build a case falsely inculpating Jimenez for the murder of Worrell. That case, which ultimately resulted in Jimenez’s conviction at trial in 2007, relied on the testimony of three cooperating witnesses—Andrew O’Brien, Esco Blaylock, and Kevin Morrissey—to tie Jimenez to the homicide. a. Andrew O’Brien At the start of the renewed investigation, Detective Stradford established contact with a man named Andrew O’Brien, who was serving a thirty-year sentence in federal prison stemming from a 1997 RICO conviction. The details of how Detective Stradford secured O’Brien’s cooperation are complicated, unclear, and in dispute. What is undisputed is that Detective Stradford, together with FBI Special Agent Diego R. Redondo, first met with O’Brien in person on January 16, 2001, in federal custody. According to Agent Redondo’s notes from the meeting, O’Brien informed the officers that he was present with Worrell at the movie theater on the night of the incident; that it was O’Brien, not Worrell, who instigated the [11] argument with the perpetrator in the concession line; and that O’Brien witnessed the shooting. See id. at 310–12. According to Agent Redondo’s notes, O’Brien described the shooter as “male, slim build, taller than O’BRIEN, squarish hair cut.” Id. at 312. The notes state that the officers showed O’Brien “a photographic array,” from which he identified a photograph of Ricardo Jimenez “as the individual with whom he had the confrontation, and who subsequently shot WORRELL.” Id. Following this identification, O’Brien would go on to become a key witness against Jimenez. But the complaint asserts that this identification was false and that Detective Stradford, knowing it to be false, used inducement and other improper methods to obtain it. To support this allegation, the complaint points to a series of inconsistencies, irregularities, and omissions in the official story of how O’Brien became a cooperating witness. We begin with the official story. At Jimenez’s trial, Detective Stradford testified that his trail to O’Brien began in 1999 when he received a “very sketchy” tip from a fellow NYPD officer, Detective Pfeiffer, about “a person who had some information on a homicide that occurred in the Bronx.” See id. at 652–54, 667–69. He testified that he “[went] through records to locate [this homicide]” [12] and “contacted the F.B.I. and had them arrange for [him] to meet this individual.” Id. at 652–53. He testified that he also contacted the Drug Enforcement Agency “to have them produce some files for [him] that might have been related to the homicide in question” and, upon receiving the files, “contacted the F.B.I. again and made arrangements to meet the individual and have myself and this [FBI] agent go visit him to talk to him about it.” Id. He testified, crucially, that it was not until he met with that individual—O’Brien—in January 2001 that he confirmed “that the case that [he] had gotten from the precinct [i.e. the Worrell homicide] was, in fact, the homicide that [O’Brien] was talking about.” Id. at 654. Indeed, he testified that he did not even “know there was a case” before meeting with O’Brien and that it was only “[a] couple of days” after their meeting that he “[knew] there was a case.” Id. at 709. O’Brien, meanwhile, testified at trial that “the first time [he] told anyone in law enforcement about what happened” was around 1996, when “[he] was being questioned by federal agents and they asked [him] . . . of certain things that he knew about.” Id. at 551–52. He testified that the next time he spoke with law enforcement about the shooting was sometime around 1998, when he spoke with Detective Pfeiffer, followed by Detective Stradford “the same year or the year [13] after.” Id. at 552–53. When asked about his reasons for cooperating, he testified that, one, he felt guilty because he was the person who started the argument in the concession line, and two, under the terms of a cooperation agreement attached to his RICO conviction, “if I kept it to myself they could rip up my agreement and everything else.” Id. at 554–55. The complaint tells a different story. We begin with the complaint’s allegations about O’Brien himself. As an initial matter, the complaint incorporates evidence that O’Brien, before becoming a witness, may himself have been a suspect. Attached to the complaint is a March 1996 note from NYPD “Sgt. Larkin,” stating that a Brooklyn detective “has information” that “Andy O’Brien” was the “perp[ ]” responsible for the 1989 Worrell homicide. Id. at 307. More importantly, the complaint incorporates evidence that O’Brien, at the time when Detective Stradford established contact with him, had been actively soliciting opportunities to serve as a cooperating witness. In 1998, in exchange for his cooperation in a different case, Assistant United States Attorney David Novak—O’Brien’s sponsor in the Witness Security Program and the prosecutor on his RICO case—had filed a Rule 35 motion to reduce his sentence. The [14] sentencing court granted the motion, reducing his prison term by several years. But O’Brien, remaining unsatisfied, began writing letters to AUSA Novak and to the sentencing judge begging for an additional reduction. In one letter to the judge, he referred to himself as a “desperate man.” Id. at 83. This desperation, the complaint asserts, was O’Brien’s true motivation, contrary to his trial testimony, for testifying against Jimenez. That is, “[he] agreed to implicate and testify against JIMENEZ with the explicit and/or implicit understanding that, in return for doing so, [Detective Stradford and ADA Mattaway] would work to obtain a sentence reduction for him in connection with his federal sentence.” Id. at 18. And, as it turns out, he did end up receiving such a reduction. See infra § I.A.4. The complaint also incorporates evidence that O’Brien did not, as he testified at trial, first inform law enforcement about his alleged knowledge of the Worrell homicide sometime around 1996. To the contrary, the complaint attaches a 32-page memorandum documenting a four-day proffer session that O’Brien underwent with the FBI in 1997 pursuant to the cooperation agreement attached to his RICO plea. Id. at 128–59. The memorandum describes that, at one point in the interview, O’Brien was shown photographs of various individuals and was [15] asked if he knew anything about them. Id. at 146–49. When shown a photograph of Worrell, he correctly identified him (though under the name “Morrell”) and stated that “this individual was killed in the Bronx, White Stone Movie Theatre.” Id. at 148. He did not provide further information about the killing nor indicate that he had any special knowledge of it, let alone that he was there. Finally, in addition to these allegations about O’Brien himself, the complaint also alleges that Detective Stradford fabricated key details regarding the investigative trail that led him to O’Brien. For one, the complaint alleges that the paperwork Detective Stradford received from the DEA about O’Brien, contrary to Detective Stradford’s trial testimony, “did not even suggest that O’Brien had knowledge of the movie theater shooting.” Id. at 90. Moreover, the complaint incorporates an internal FBI memorandum from Agent Redondo, dated January 3, 2001, requesting that arrangements be made for the January 16, 2001, in-custody interview with O’Brien. The memorandum states that the FBI and NYPD had been investigating the Worrell homicide; that “it was determined that O’BRIEN possessed first hand [sic] knowledge of the homicide”; and that “[s]pecifically, [O’Brien] witnessed the murder being [16] committed by RICARDO JIM[E]NEZ.” Id. at 308. The memorandum also states that AUSA Novak had already been contacted to secure O’Brien’s cooperation. This, of course, contradicts Detective Stradford’s trial testimony that it was not until after the January 16 meeting with O’Brien that Detective Stradford confirmed the connection between O’Brien and the Worrell homicide (or even that “there was a case”). And crucially, it also contradicts the official account of O’Brien’s original identification of Jimenez, set forth in Agent Redondo’s notes from the January 16 meeting. That account—which states that O’Brien described to the officers the physical profile of the shooter and then selected Jimenez’s image from an array—implies that O’Brien, before the meeting, did not know Jimenez personally or by name and had not already identified a photograph of him. But if that is so, then there is no apparent way that the officers could have known as of January 3 that O’Brien saw Jimenez killing Worrell and would testify to that effect. The implication, according to the complaint, is that the January 16 identification was the result of suggestion and inducement. b. Esco Blaylock According to Detective Stradford’s trial testimony, the next steps in his investigation, after the January 2001 meeting with O’Brien, were to obtain the [17] records from the 1989 NYPD investigation; to locate the witnesses mentioned therein; and to arrange to interview them. From the record, it is unclear whether, as part of this effort, Detective Stradford contacted Lisa Salter, the eyewitness who knew Jimenez personally and who told Detective Serrano that Jimenez was not one of the individuals involved in the argument in the concession line. See supra § I.A.1. In 2012, Salter wrote and signed an affidavit stating that “had [she] been asked to testify about what [she] saw at the theater on July 3, 1989, [she] would have been willing to do so.” App’x at 326. For unexplained reasons, the case lay dormant for five years after Detective Stradford’s initial meeting with O’Brien. It was not until April 2006 that Detective Stradford found a second witness willing to inculpate Jimenez: Esco Blaylock. It is unclear how or why Blaylock, who ceased cooperating nearly two decades prior, agreed at this point to resume his previously “withdrawn” testimony. 1 In 2012, an OAD investigator interviewed Blaylock, and according to the investigator’s affidavit, Blaylock stated that “he was forced ‘by law’ to cooperate [with the 2006 investigation] because he was a TSA employee at the 1Jimenez asserts that Blaylock recanted his earlier testimony. The Government says that he simply stopped cooperating. [18] time and it was ‘Homeland Security rules.’” Id. at 125–26. Along similar lines, the 2007 trial transcript contains testimony indicating that, around the time Detective Stradford initiated contact with Blaylock, Blaylock had been arrested for driving while intoxicated and eventually lost his job in airport security. The complaint also asserts that Blaylock, at the last minute, tried to avoid testifying at Jimenez’s trial and had to be personally retrieved by Detective Stradford before his appearance. From these facts, the complaint draws the inference that Blaylock may have cooperated under some form of compulsion. The complaint also incorporates evidence that Detective Stradford may have used an unduly suggestive identification procedure to induce Blaylock’s renewed identification of Jimenez. According to the OAD investigator’s affidavit, Blaylock, in 2012, summarized the identification procedure which Detective Stradford applied to him as follows: first, Blaylock was shown several different photographic arrays, each of which contained an image of Jimenez; then, he was given an opportunity to review each of the arrays several times; and only then, after he had noted the recurrence of Jimenez’s image (and apparently only Jimenez’s image) across the different arrays, was he asked to identify whether any of the individuals in the arrays looked familiar. Id. at 125–26. [19]  According to the affidavit, “[Blaylock] compared the process to the [children’s image identification] game ‘Where’s Waldo?’.” Id. at 126. The increased danger of misidentification stemming from such procedures—that is, when a witness is shown “the pictures of several persons among which the photograph of a single such individual recurs”—has long been well established. See Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 383 (1968). On August 31, 2006, with Blaylock’s cooperation secured, Jimenez was arrested for the Worrell murder. A few days later, on September 2, a grand jury, having heard evidence presented by ADA Mattaway, issued an indictment. From the limited portion of the grand jury transcript on file in this proceeding, it is unknown whether O’Brien testified. See Sealed App’x at 1–31. Detective Stradford, whose brief testimony did not mention O’Brien, spoke only about his interaction with Blaylock. He testified that he met with Blaylock in April 2006 and performed an identification procedure, and that Blaylock identified Jimenez in “[p]osition number [two.]” Id. at 4. Blaylock testified at greater length, detailing his reminiscences from the night of the killing. He testified that he witnessed “Leon” arguing in the concession line and subsequently shooting Worrell in the theater, and that at the [20] time he had known Leon by name, but not personally, for eight or nine months. He testified that he met with Detective Stradford in April 2006 and “went through a photo array,” from which he “recognized the guy that I know as Leon, the guy that shot the other guy.” Id. at 23. Neither Detective Stradford nor Blaylock provided any testimony about the allegedly irregular nature of the photographic identification procedure — i.e., that Blaylock was given an opportunity to note the recurrence of Jimenez’s image across several different arrays before being asked to make an identification. c. Kevin Morrissey Shortly after Jimenez was arrested and placed in pretrial detention, a man with whom he was incarcerated, Kevin Morrissey, reached out to the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office seeking to establish contact with the attorney responsible for Jimenez’s prosecution. Morrissey claimed that Jimenez confessed to him in jail that he (Jimenez) was guilty of the Worrell killing and offered to testify against Jimenez to that effect. But Jimenez, the complaint asserts, never made any such confession. Morrissey, it turns out, was patently unreliable. He had a history of delusion and mental illness, including schizophrenia. He had multiple charges against him. [21] And he was a serial jailhouse informant who had worked with, or tried to work with, prosecutors’ offices in numerous cases. Once, he had attempted to provide false testimony against the crime boss John Gotti. Another time, he had written a letter to a judge indicating that a foreign man living inside his body was responsible for the crimes of which he had been accused. Despite these reliability issues, ADA Mattaway decided to use him as a witness at trial. 3. Preparation for Trial. As trial approached, ADA Mattaway met with O’Brien at least once, and Detective Stradford met with him multiple times. On June 4, 2007, ADA Mattaway spoke by phone with AUSA Novak, O’Brien’s sponsor in the Witness Security Program. After the phone call, ADA Mattaway emailed AUSA Novak stating that she “would like Andrew O’Brien to testify for me here in Bronx Supreme [C]ourt.” App’x at 48–49. She requested copies of “any cooperation agreements he has made in exchange for his testimony with the Federal government and any information regarding favorable treatment he may have received in exchange for his cooperation, including his placement in the witness protection program.” Id. She wrote: “I am aware that he [22] has written numerous letters to the judge in his case requesting leniency and if any of those letters mention the possibility he may testify here in Bronx Supreme [C]ourt for me, I imagine I will need copies of those letters too.” Id. On June 8, 2007, AUSA Novak sent ADA Mattaway the requested documents, including, inter alia: (1) the FBI memorandum from O’Brien’s 1997 proffer session; (2) O’Brien’s letters to his sentencing judge seeking a sentence reduction; (3) the Rule 35 motion that AUSA Novak had filed on O’Brien’s behalf and the resulting order reducing his sentence; and (4) transcripts of O’Brien’s cooperating testimony in past cases. AUSA Novak flagged that he was providing these documents “for [ADA Mattaway’s] determination as to whether they are discoverable in [the] prosecution of Ricardo Jimenez.” Id. at 160–61. ADA Mattaway, however, did not disclose any of these documents, nor her communications with AUSA Novak, to Jimenez’s counsel. Nor did she disclose the fact that O’Brien had already received a sentence reduction under his cooperation agreement and was campaigning for another, nor the fact that at his 1997 proffer session he had not indicated any special knowledge of the Worrell homicide. Her pretrial witness disclosure statement regarding O’Brien omitted [23] any indication that she intended to assist him in seeking a sentence reduction. Instead, it stated only as follows: [C]urrently jailed in Federal Custody for Murder (unrelated) and serving 30 years. Has asked for a letter to be prepared by the undersigned that he can have put in his file stating that he testified for the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office. Id. at 162. In addition to withholding these documents and facts about O’Brien, ADA Mattaway also withheld impeachment evidence relevant to Morrissey, including aspects of his criminal history, past instances of cooperation, and mental illness. She also, the complaint alleges, delayed production of portions of detective files and other pertinent materials in order to impede or prevent their effective use by defense counsel. According to the complaint, ADA Mattaway’s decision to suppress these facts and materials was not an isolated occurrence but rather the consequence of the practices, policies, and longstanding culture of the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office, where prosecutors were permitted and even encouraged to violate ethical norms and legal rules in pursuit of convictions with no fear of disciplinary consequences. According to the complaint, whereas the office closely tracked conviction rates, it did virtually nothing to track, enforce, or punish [24] ethical misconduct, despite repeated appellate reversals for prosecutorial misbehavior. To support these assertions, the complaint incorporates an appendix of cases in which appellate courts have found ethical violations by Bronx County prosecutors. It also incorporates a law article reviewing empirical and testimonial evidence derived from discovery materials produced by the City of New York in past litigation; this evidence suggests an absence of disciplinary policies or practices to address persistent ethical violations by Bronx County prosecutors from the 1970s through the 2000s. See Joel B. Rudin, The Supreme Court Assumes Errant Prosecutors Will Be Disciplined by Their Offices or the Bar: Three Case Studies that Prove that Assumption Wrong, 80 Fordham L. Rev. 537, 544– 58 (2011). 4. Trial. Trial began in Bronx County Supreme Court in June 2007 and lasted several weeks. In the absence of physical evidence, the prosecution relied entirely on the testimony of Morrissey, O’Brien, and Blaylock to tie Jimenez to the killing. Detectives Serrano and Stradford, among other police officers, testified about [25] their investigations. Detective Serrano testified that he did not recall the specifics of his investigation and did not recall making an arrest. Throughout the trial, ADA Mattaway elicited testimony—such as Detective Stradford’s testimony, see supra § I.A.2.a—contrary to documents that she had not shown to the defense. And in her summation, she implied that O’Brien was a reformed gang member, stating that “he’s doing time for his own problems.” App’x at 100. She did not indicate that he had testified for the very purpose of diminishing that “time.” After five days of deliberation, the jury found Jimenez guilty of second- degree murder. The court sentenced him to twenty-two years to life in prison. At sentencing, he continued to maintain his innocence, stating, “I didn’t do it. I was never there at the movie theater when that happened.” Id. at 91. After trial, ADA Mattaway wrote a letter to AUSA Novak indicating that O’Brien’s testimony had been “crucial to the People’s case” and urging AUSA Novak to “give Mr. O’Brien whatever consideration you can in your position” because he “came through for me when I needed him and then some.” Id. at 90. In turn, AUSA Novak filed a Rule 35 motion based on O’Brien’s cooperation. The [26] sentencing court granted the motion, removing an additional five years from O’Brien’s prison term. 5. Post-Trial Proceedings. a. State Appeals On direct appeal to the First Department of the Appellate Division, Jimenez asserted various constitutional and non-constitutional claims, all of which were rejected. See People v. Jimenez, 896 N.Y.S.2d 69 (1st Dep’t 2010). Jimenez sought leave to appeal to the New York Court of Appeals, which was denied. People v. Jimenez, 15 N.Y.3d 752 (2010). In 2011, Jimenez initiated a collateral proceeding, moving to vacate his conviction under N. Y. Crim. Proc. § 440.10, arguing, inter alia, that ADA Mattaway withheld exculpatory evidence in violation of disclosure obligations under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). The Bronx County Supreme Court denied the motion without holding a hearing. On appeal, the First Department partially affirmed and partially reversed, finding that Jimenez made a “sufficient showing to warrant a hearing” on only one narrow issue: whether “the prosecutor knew that O’Brien had been given a specific quid pro quo for his testimony.” People v. Jimenez, 37 N.Y.S.3d 225, 235 (1st Dep’t 2016). The matter [27] was remanded to determine whether ADA Mattaway violated her Brady obligations “by not disclosing the terms of an agreement to assist in a sentence reduction for People’s witness Andrew O’Brien, if such an agreement existed.” Id. at 236. On remand, the Bronx Supreme Court held a hearing on this issue at which Detective Stradford, ADA Mattaway, and O’Brien gave testimony. In June 2018, the court denied the motion once more, concluding that “there was no quid pro quo agreement between the Bronx prosecutor’s office and Mr. O’Brien and/or the federal prosecutor.” App’x at 201–02. Jimenez sought leave to appeal to the Appellate Division, which was denied, People v. Jimenez, 2018 N.Y. Slip Op. 87587(U) (1st Dep’t 2018), and