Santiago murder trial
goes to the jury

By Tom Waring
Times Staff Writer

Defense attorney David Rudovsky argued that there are multiple reasons why his client, Wilfredo Santiago, should be found not guilty of murder.
The jailhouse informants who claim Santiago confessed to them that he killed police officer Thomas Trench back in 1985 were looking for deals to get out of prison, according to Rudovsky.
The defense attorney also told the jury during his closing argument on Monday that other witnesses have contradicted themselves over the years.
In addition, he noted the lack of eyewitnesses, blood, DNA, ballistics, fingerprints and the murder weapon.
"The evidence fails to prove guilt," said Rudovsky, asking the jury not to compound the tragic murder of a police officer by convicting someone where there’s plenty of reasonable doubt.
Assistant District Attorney Carlos Vega has a different take on the evidence. He told the panel of six men and six women to remember the numerous witnesses who testified that they saw Santiago with a gun at various times before the murder.
The prosecutor also reminded the jury of Santiago’s threat that he was going to "get" the police officer who chased him after a neighborhood fight and later scuffled with his cousin and aunt.
After the shots were fired, a neighbor testified that he saw Santiago riding a bike away from the scene. A plane ticket to Puerto Rico showed that Santiago had moved up his date of departure.
And then there was the Holmesburg Prison correctional officer trainee whom Santiago warned, "I’ll kill you like I killed that f——— cop."
"He’s as guilty as sin," Vega said.
After the closing arguments ended on Monday afternoon in front of a packed courtroom at the Criminal Justice Center, Common Pleas Court Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes settled some final matters with the attorneys and gave final instructions to the jury. Deliberations began late that day, and no verdict was announced as the Times went to press.
Jury selection began on April 28; testimony started two days later.
Trench, who lived on the 3300 block of Ashville St. in Mayfair, was shot to death May 28, 1985 as he sat in his 9th Police District car on 17th Street between Brandywine and Spring Garden streets. The 43-year-old officer, an 11-year veteran of the force, left behind a wife and two daughters.
Santiago was arrested and convicted of first-degree murder in 1986. He received a sentence of life in prison.
But state Superior Court in 1991 ordered a retrial after finding that the trial judge had committed misconduct. In 1992, Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that police had questioned Santiago without a lawyer and that the judge had suppressed evidence. Santiago walked out of Holmesburg Prison free on bail.
Later that year, a Common Pleas Court judge prohibited a retrial because of prosecutorial misconduct at trial. In 1994, Superior Court overturned that decision and allowed a retrial.
Fourteen years and countless legal hearings later, the retrial finally took place.
Santiago’s original lawyers, Bruce Franzel and Tom McGill, joined Rudovsky at the defense table.
Santiago, 44, has been in prison since 2003. He’s serving a sentence of 21 to 42 years for an aggravated assault conviction related to a domestic disturbance on Souder Street in Castor Gardens. Four family members brought a freshly pressed shirt, pants and tie for him to wear during closing arguments.
During the trial, Vega presented evidence that Santiago was angry at Ismael Cruz, the officer in car 912 during the 4 p.m.-to-midnight shift on Memorial Day 1985. Santiago brawled with neighborhood men nicknamed "June Bug" and "Big Vic," and Cruz chased him after noticing what he thought to be a gun hidden in his waistband.
Cruz didn’t catch Santiago, but arrived at his house at 603 N. 18th St. There, he had to fight off a mob of Santiago’s friends and family members. The officer heard multiple people say, "9-1-2, we’re going to get you."
Trench started his shift at midnight and used the 912 car. He was shot in the face and neck at about 2:30 a.m.
One of the jailhouse informants, a convicted murderer himself, testified that Santiago told him he thought he shot Cruz.
Rudovsky labeled the motive as "very weak," saying his client wouldn’t kill a police officer who had simply chased him, not arrested him. He added that Santiago was not at the scene when the threats were made to Cruz.
The defense attorney described the jailhouse informant — the Times and Philadelphia Daily News are honoring a prosecution request to leave out the names of civilian witnesses to protect their safety — to the jury as a "pathological liar the likes of which you’ll never see again." He called it a "sheer coincidence" any time the witness tells the truth, adding it would be an "injustice" if Santiago were convicted by his testimony.
"He can’t keep a story straight," Rudovsky said, pointing out that the witness has acknowledged lying in the original trial and at other times.
Vega described the witness as an "evil monster," but said he was telling the truth.
The prosecutor argued that the witness could not have made up the story about Cruz being the target because news accounts of the crime did not mention the officer’s role. Also, the witness told authorities that Santiago "stashed" the gun in a home on 19th Street, another bit of information not in news reports.
Vega, in an aggressive closing argument, mocked the theory of defense lawyers and took particular aim at Ben Lerner, who headed the Defender Association of Philadelphia at the time of the crime and is now a Common Pleas Court judge.
Lerner testified about his dealings with another jailhouse informant, and his answers led Vega to say that he puts more trust in the words of the convicted killer who testified than he does in the judge.
The witness, who was released from prison last December, served the maximum sentence for third-degree murder and possessing an instrument of crime. Vega said he has no reason to lie.
"He has served his twenty-five years. I can’t touch him," he said.
The defense does not have the burden of finding who killed Trench, but Rudovsky did point to threats made in 911 calls and on a City Hall men’s bathroom wall by the radical group MOVE.
About two weeks before the Trench killing, the city dropped a bomb on the group’s headquarters in West Philadelphia. The ensuing fire killed 11 people.
One caller to 911 after the Trench murder said, "That’s just one for the eleven members that you all killed."
Vega’s evidence included a wood baseball bat Santiago allegedly carried in a fight, some graphic pictures of the aftermath of the killing, the window frame from Trench’s car and the officer’s shirt, nametag and briefcase. He even produced the television listings from that morning to prove that a witness who heard the gunshots was indeed watching The Train Robbery, starring John Wayne and Ann-Margret.
The prosecutor asked the jury to convict Santiago, in part, to help Cruz overcome his guilt of having used car 912 on an earlier shift and to give closure to Trench’s daughters, Annemarie and Carol. ••
Reporter Tom Waring can be reached at 215-354-3034 or twaring@phillynews.com