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Kevin Lee (MUGSHOT: NJDOC)
Kevin Lee, who is serving a lifetime prison sentence in the cold-blooded April 1996 killing of Teaneck Patrolman Robert L. Fisher in the parking lot of the Sears, Roebuck and Co. store in Hackensack, was formerly charged with the new count at East Jersey State Prison in Rahway last week, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said this morning.
In April of last year, the Jamaican native filed an appeal of his murder conviction through a public defender. Molinelli said a copy was forwarded to his staff by the state Division of Criminal Justice.
It raised questions, he said.
As it turns out, Molinelli said, the 39-year-old Lee falsely claimed that a state appeals court allowed the convicted gunman, Kevin Richards, a hearing on fingerprint evidence. Lee used that as the basis for a claim that he should get a similar hearing.
Trouble is: Although the document he filed had the same docket number as the Appellate Division’s June 23, 2005 ruling — the original decision made no mention of fingerprint evidence, Molinelli said.
Fisher, 27, was moonlighting as a security guard when he was ambushed by Lee and Richards, who shot him in the chest and killed the officer during a struggle that yielded $5,500 in store receipts that the Englewood native was carrying in a toolbox.
The empty toolbox was later found in the Passaic River, beneath the Route 80 bridge.
Lee, of Paterson, was on the run for six months before FBI agents tracked him down at his girlfriend’s apartment in Maryland. He was bound for Jamaica, authorities said.
A Bergen County grand jury indicted Lee and Richards in February 1997. They were also charged with another murder and three other holdups.
Both were convicted at separate trials. A key piece of evidence against Lee was Reader’s Digest magazine found at the crime scene that held a sweepstakes entry form in his mother’s name.
For Richards, it was a confession read in court in which he said he fired a single 9mm bullet into Fisher’s chest.
A third man, Alva McLean, was aquitted of conspiring with the other two to rob Fisher by giving them information about the off-duty officer’s movements.
Lee and Richards were later sentenced to a lifetime prison terms that don’t allow them parole eligibility until 2029. Richards, however, must remain until 2055 — if he lives that long — because he was also convicted of killing a Paramus service station attendant in 1996.
The appeals court affirmed Lee’s conviction in a June 2003 ruling, and the state Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
Molinelli’s staff faxed an arrest warrant last week to East Jersey State Prison after reviewing his latest appeal.
A court appearance was being arranged, the prosecutor said.
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