Some expert!
A defense witness in the sentencing retrial of cop killer Ronell Wilson earned $5,000 in taxpayer money in less than two hours yesterday — mostly to read excerpts from other people’s research on the stand.
Actor-cum-construction worker and now child-psychology guru Dr. Robert Macy spent 90 minutes telling jurors that a bad childhood often leads to misbehavior — and recited studies to back up the notion.
Since Wilson was provided with court-appointed attorneys, taxpayers will pay the hefty price of Macy’s wisdom — $500 an hour.
The Bloods gangbanger’s lawyers want jurors to spare Wilson’s life partly because of his horrific childhood — and Macy was brought in to drive home the point yesterday in Brooklyn federal court.
Relatives of Wilson’s two NYPD victims could barely contain their sarcastic laughter when Macy announced his rate on the stand and then admitted to skipping any actual research on Wilson’s case.
Prosecutor Celia Cohen asked the psychologist if he had ever even been to Staten Island, the borough where Wilson committed the crimes. Macy wasn’t sure. “Wasn’t there a flood here recently?” he asked in an apparent reference to Hurricane Sandy.
Wilson was convicted in 2006 of murdering undercover NYPD detectives James Nemorin and Rodney Andrews during a gun buy-and-bust sting. He was sentenced to death but averted lethal injection when an appeals court tossed the sentence due to a prosecutor’s misstep.