Judge Sets Bail For Dying Man In L.I. Sex Abuse Case
CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- A federal judge has set bail at $100,000 and other conditions for a dying Long Island man who recently had his sex abuse conviction thrown out.
Prosecutors dropped their objections to releasing 66-year-old Thomas Green after a doctor confirmed reports that the man is likely dying of cancer.
Attorney Ron Kuby has indicated his client may have only weeks to live.
Judge Sets Bail For Dying Man In L.I. Sex Abuse Case
"The District Attorney's office which opposed release earlier this week had their own oncologist review the medical records and they concur with the findings that Mr. Green is desperately ill and should be released." Kuby said, adding that his client may be too sick to go home.
Green is currently hospitalized, but under guard, on eastern Long Island.
"He's not going anywhere today besides making that trip from one hospital bed to another hospital bed," Kuby said.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Arthur Spatt vacated Green's 2008 conviction on sex abuse and sodomy charges.
Spatt found there were questions over the accuracy of evidence at Green's trial.
At trial, prosecutors claimed Green molested five girls – all of them friends and one of them a member of his family – in both public and private places between 1998 and 2003.
One girl claimed she slept at Green's home every weekend and every day during the summer of 1998 when she was 7, and one night, she and another girl watched a scary movie with Green and they decided to sleep in bed with him after they were frightened by the movie. The girl claimed during the night, she woke up to find Green performing a sex act on her, according to court documents.
The girl also alleged that Green forced her to perform other sex acts and committed violent abuse against her, according to documents. The girl claimed at trial that she and her friend made a pinky swear that they would tell someone about the incidents when they got older and were "ready to face" what had happened, documents said.
But one of the girls denied that any of the acts of abuse had happened to her, or that she even knew the girl making the allegations, according to court papers.
A photo of the girls together marked "Coney Island 6/98" was shown at trial, but defense attorneys said in court that the film used for the photo was not even being manufactured in 1998, according to documents.
In a 44-page opinion, Spatt said Green's trial attorney, Paul Gianelli, should have challenged the physical evidence presented by prosecutors more closely.
Spatt gave prosecutors 90 days to decide if they want to retry Green.
The prosecutors are appealing Spatt's initial ruling vacating the conviction.
Green, who was known as "Grandpa" on his Selden block, served five years of a 35-year prison sentence for molesting neighborhood children before his conviction was thrown out.
Green will have to wear an electronic bracelet if he posts bail.
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