NY judge rules against defense bid to shift blame to other teen in immigrant’s stabbing death

Bid to blame teen pal in NY stabbing death denied

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — A suburban New York City judge has rejected a defense attorney’s bid to allow a suspect in the stabbing death of an Ecuadorean immigrant to blame a co-defendant for the killing.

Defense attorney William Keahon wanted to call 18-year-old defendant Jeffrey Conroy as a witness in the teen’s Long Island murder trial on Wednesday.

Conroy is one of seven teens implicated in the November 2008 killing of Marcelo Lucero (mar-SEHL’-oh loo-SEHR’-oh). He’s the only one charged with murder and manslaughter as a hate crime because he’s accused of inflicting the fatal blow.

State Supreme Court Justice Robert W. Doyle ruled there was no evidence in the trial to support the contention another of the teens had stabbed Lucero.

The prosecution rested its case earlier Wednesday.