By Ryan Schwach
The Queens district attorney’s office quietly brought charges against Jabez Chakraborty, a 23-year-old Queens man with schizophrenia who was shot by police during a mental health crisis in late January, denying his right to testify on his behalf, his lawyers allege.
Attorneys from the Legal Aid Society representing Chakraborty said in a February motion that Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz’s office secretly brought grand-jury charges against the man while he lay shackled to a Queens hospital bed. They called on a judge to dismiss the case.
Chakraborty was shot by police on Jan. 26 after his family called 911 in the hopes police would come to their Briarwood home and involuntarily remove their son – who was in the throes of a mental health crisis – for treatment.
Instead, two police officers showed up and were met by Chakraborty, who was wielding a knife and moving toward them. Police officer Tyree White fired his gun, striking Chakraborty four times.
Chakraborty has since been charged by the DA with attempted assault and criminal possession of a weapon, charges his lawyers say were unfairly moved without their knowledge and without giving Chakraborty a chance to testify before a grand jury.
“The prosecution failed to produce Mr. Chakraborty for a timely arraignment and failed to advise any of the attorneys who reached out on his behalf about the grand jury presentation,” Laura Eraso, Chakraborty’s attorney, said in the filing. “Instead, the prosecution used the days following Mr. Chakraborty’s shooting and immediate arrest to investigate and try to build a case against Mr. Chakraborty, and to protect the NYPD and Officer White, who shot Mr. Chakraborty inside his home multiple times at close range in front of his family members.”
Eraso argued that the DA’s office did not keep her, the Legal Aid Society, or Chakraborty’s family appraised in the course of the investigation into the shooting or grand jury proceedings.
On Feb. 12, more than two weeks after the shooting, Legal Aid filed in court to protest Chakraborty’s “prolonged detention” without any filed charges.
“Up until that point, QDA continued to maintain to lawyers, community groups, and elected officials that they were still investigating,” the filing read. “It was not until the writ was filed that the prosecution finally scheduled Mr. Chakraborty for arraignment on the charges.”
Chakraborty was ultimately arraigned on Feb. 13 before Queens Judge Jessica Earl-Gargan.
In response to Legal Aid’s argument, the DA’s office says that it did not rush or hide the proceedings, but were instead waiting for Chakraborty to be medically cleared by the hospital.
“Defense counsel argues that the People ‘deliberate[ly] delay[ed]’ arraigning defendant that unfairly prevented defendant from exercising his rights to testify and request witnesses be heard before the grand jury,” Assistant District Attorney Hugh McCann wrote in a filing in response. “But counsel knows full well that defendant could not have been arraigned before he was medically cleared.”
McCann attested that he reached out to Jamaica Hospital several times to check on Chakraborty’s medical status, and if he was cleared to be arraigned, but that he wasn’t medically cleared until Feb. 12, the day before he was virtually arraigned from his hospital bed.
“As soon as he was cleared, the People immediately made arrangements for defendant to be arraigned,” McCann said. “Thus, there is absolutely no basis for counsel’s accusation that the People denied defendant his right to testify or seek to present witnesses before the grand jury by delaying his arraignment.”
McCann said the DA had no intention of proceeding with a “silent” arraignment, because they were under no obligation to serve Chakraborty with charges because he was not medically cleared – nor did they need to allow him to testify before the grand jury.
“The subject of a criminal investigation has no right under either the state or federal constitution, or, for that matter, the common law, to testify before a grand jury,” McCann wrote.