An accused triggerman in the fatal shooting of Officer Russel Timoshenko may be set to spill the beans to federal authorities – boosting chances that his alleged accomplice could be executed if convicted, The Post has learned.
As Timoshenko’s shattered parents prepared to bury their only son in his police uniform, efforts were made over the weekend to have accused gunman Robert Ellis’ lawyer speak with the feds about her client’s possible cooperation with authorities, a law-enforcement source said yesterday.
Federal prosecutors likely would need Ellis’ testimony to make a case against the second accused gunman – violent ex-con Dexter Bostic, who is believed to have fired two shots into Timoshenko’s face during a July 9 traffic stop in Brooklyn. Ellis’ lawyer could not be reached for comment.
Immediately after Timoshenko’s death Saturday, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office filed murder charges against Bostic and Ellis, both 34, and 29-year-old Lee Woods. Woods admits driving a stolen BMW carrying the alleged triggermen on the night Timoshenko and fellow cop Herman Yan were shot. The three suspects are due to be arraigned on the new charges today.
New York state currently has no death penalty, so the stiffest punishment any of the men could face if prosecuted by the Brooklyn DA is life in prison without parole.
But if Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Roslyn Mauskopf brought federal charges against the men, one or more of them could be executed if convicted, under the federal death-penalty statute.
Timoshenko’s family had to deal with another crisis last night after the officer’s grandfather was rushed to New York Community Hospital in Brooklyn with chest pains. His condition wasn’t immediately known.
Timoshenko’s father left the family’s Staten Island residence earlier in the day carrying his son’s uniform, which is expected to be on the cop’s body during his wake tomorrow and Wednesday at I.J. Morris Funeral Home on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. A funeral service is scheduled for Thursday at the same location.
Yan’s sister, Joan Sceto, yesterday said, “He feels very sorry about the passing of his partner.”
Alan Vinegrad, a former Brooklyn U.S. attorney, said that for Bostic to face federal death-penalty charges in Timoshenko’s murder, prosecutors would have to prove that he killed the cop either to advance or maintain his position in a “racketeering enterprise.”
Woods has told cops that he and the other two intended to sell guns the night of the shooting. Cops also are investigating whether the men were involved in prostitution and money-laundering scams at a Long Island auto dealership, sources said.
Vinegrad said that if those allegations pan out, there is a “stronger” likelihood that federal prosecutors would seek to bring capital charges in the case.
“I think there’s going to be a real push for the U.S. Attorney’s Office to take over the case, for the same reason they took over the Staten Island case,” said Vinegrad, referring to the recent successful federal death-penalty prosecution of Ronell Wilson for killing two undercover cops in 2003.
But whether Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes would willingly cede the case to the feds is another story.
As of now, “the case is going to be prosecuted by the District Attorney’s Office,” said a spokesman for Hynes.
With Jamie Schram and Murray Weiss