Many Victims Failed To Pick UES Groping Suspect Out Of Line-Up

Jose Alfredo Perez Hernandez, the man suspected to be the Upper East Side Groper (left screenshot via CBS, right screenshot taken from subway)

Yesterday, the teen suspected to be the Upper East Side groper was arraigned on charges of sexual abuse, forcible touching and burglary. Suspect Jose Alfredo Perez Hernandez was picked out of a lineup by three victims yesterday, but at least four other victims failed to pick him out. And Hernandez's lawyer says the failed lineups "show the weakness of witness identification...Sometimes the wrong person is picked out." Is it possible that there are TWO pint-sized gropers terrorizing the UES?

Prosecutor David Hammer said that three or four of the twelve victims did not pick Hernandez out, one woman chose someone else, and one could not decide between Hernandez and another man. Because of his short stature, the defendant had been “raised up on a chair” to hide his height and blankets covered the legs of all the men in the lineup. Nevertheless, Hammer noted that “the lineup was very good,” certainly good enough for the six charges.

One victim who did pick him out said he had followed her to her apartment building on East 85th Street on July 13th and "reached under [her] skirt and grabbed around [her] buttocks and knocked her to the ground." Another woman claims the suspect rubbed against her on a subway near the 68th Street station. And the third woman said he followed her out of the subway on July 17th and back to her apartment; when she confronted him by yelling, "What are you doing?" he fled before attacking her.

The 5-foot-1 Hernandez, who worked as a dishwasher at Antonucci Cafe on East 81st Street for the last six months, has been described as like a restaurant mascot by his former boss. But a former coworker, Diego Sanchez, recalled, "Last Sunday, he told me he was looking for a lawyer. He was worried since the first pictures showed up on the streets." Hernandez's uncle, Miguel Perez Flores, who has lived with him for the past year, told the Post that his nephew promised him he wasn't the groper: "I asked him. He said, 'No, I did nothing.' He said, 'No, no, no! Never this thing.' "

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By Ben Yakas in News on August 11, 2011 2:50 PM

Comments [rss]

pendejito

To think he threw away an aspiring career in dishwashing. What a waste of a good and talented person.

maritov

In fact, lots of research shows that eyewitness are extraordinarily unreliable at identifying the criminal suspect. Those who have been victimized by gun crimes, for instance, are more likely to remember details of the gun than of the criminal. Reliability is further decreased with the victim and offender are of different racial backgrounds. In fact, people are so bad at recalling the details of the events that they will fail to notice a gorilla in the middle of a basketball game: http://www.livescience.com/672...

jalmos

Raising him up on a chair to be the same height as the other men in the lineup seems like it would undermine the process. Knowing his height should be part of the identification process.

Unkle_Bob

You don't know much about how the human mind, and lineups in general, work, do you?

jalmos

Clearly you're the expert with your hot pink hair comment. I didn't suggest he be set among NBA players. Rather that intentionally altering his apparent height (as if the curtain over their legs didn't stick out) instead of just finding similarly short people to stand next to him alters the perspective of the viewer.

Unkle_Bob

The entire point is that you have to be able to pick that specific person out of a lineup of similar people. That's the ENTIRE POINT. If you aren't able to do that, it means you didn't get a good enough look to be able to accurately accuse someone of a crime.

jalmos

I agree that a lineup of similar people is the point. Which is why I question purposely altering the height of one particular person so that they match the rest of the people around them.

Samantha_Ga

That's the same thing I thought. Height seems like it would be valuable...if you knew he was very short, but he APPEARED to be the same height as everyone else in the lineup, you might very well think he wasn't the person who attacked you.

Unkle_Bob

Conversely, if you know he was short, and he was the only short person in the line up, you'd pick him even if he was a she with flaming pink hair and a clown nose. The human mind is funny like that.