New trial granted in Staten Island sexual abuse case

A state appeals court has granted a new trial to a man convicted of sex abuse because a barely audible recording was admitted into evidence.

Defendant Fabian Melendez, 41, was convicted in Staten Island in May 2016 of three counts of second-degree criminal sexual act.

Melendez is accused of having sex with his former partner’s son, who was less than 15 years old at the time.

In a decision released Wednesday, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court Second Department reversed the conviction and ordered a new trial.

At a trial in February 2016, the jury was unable to reach a verdict, and the state Supreme Court justice declared a mistrial.

The jury in the second trial convicted Melendez of three counts of second-degree criminal sexual.

The appellate attorney representing Melendez argued double jeopardy and that the charges should be dismissed because there was not enough evidence to convict Melendez.

“Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, we find that the evidence in the first trial was legally sufficient to establish the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” the court wrote.

Melendez also argued that a guilty verdict at the first trial would have been against the weight of the evidence and the prosecution should not have been given a second chance to convict him.

“Because the jury did not render a verdict in the first trial, however, there is no verdict from the first trial to which to apply a weight-of-the-evidence test,” the panel wrote.

Melendez also argued that the guilty verdict in the second trial was against the weight of the evidence.

“We are satisfied that the verdict of guilt in the second trial was not against the weight of the evidence,” the court wrote.

Melendez also argued that the judge should not have admitted as evidence an “insufficiently audible audio recording of a controlled meeting that occurred between him and the complainant,” according to the decision.

“The Supreme Court improvidently exercised its discretion in admitting the subject recording into evidence,” the panel wrote.

The first 25 minutes of the conversation is almost completely inaudible, according to the decision. Some of the remaining parts of the recording were “so inaudible and indistinct that the jury would have had to speculate as to their contents,” the court wrote.

“The error was compounded when the jury was given what purported to be a transcript of portions of the largely inaudible recording,” the court wrote. “The proof of the defendant’s guilt was not overwhelming, and thus, the error was not harmless.”

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