A Bronx Judge wants to know what happened to potentially critical surveillance video evidence in a brutal assault case.
The I-Team has reviewed a police report, or DD5, stating NYPD detectives located three videos that captured a fight and stabbing outside a nightclub in June 2014. Ronald Plaza, 32, is serving a 10-year-prison for the crime — but insists he actually tried to stop the attack.
Plaza isn’t the most sympathetic defendant. He admits he fled when the jury was deliberating his fate and posted photos on social media from a Mexican resort, lounging in a bathtub with a champagne bottle and gun clearly visible.
"I regret that, it was stupid," he told the I-Team in an exclusive jailhouse interview.
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Plaza straightened up when the prison gates slammed shut. He filed multiple freedom of information requests, and then came that DD5.
"The detectives describe the crime, so obviously they had the video,” Plaza said during an interview at Shawangunk Correctional Facility. "That video would show what I’ve been saying all along. I didn’t commit that crime."
Both Plaza and his trial attorney said they never knew that outside camera video existed and never saw the police report. In a recent affidavit, trial defense attorney Alain Massena wrote: "This suppressed report was critical to my defense of Ronald Plaza."
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At the trial, prosecutors only showed video from two cameras inside a parking garage that revealed a fight between two girls.
The I-Team obtained an email from the district attorney’s office in 2019 where a member of the Conviction Integrity Unit described a meeting with the case detective, Scott Patterson.
"Patterson stated he believed that he had viewed the footage from the outside camera when he went to the crime scene on June 12, 2014," the email read. "As he was assigned to night watch, he did not collect the video - that task was assigned to another detective."
Neither the NYPD nor the DA’s office would comment, but a judge has ordered a hearing on the evidence that will begin Nov. 14th. Among the questions: If relevant video existed, was it viewed by NYPD detectives or personnel from the Office of the District Attorney?
