‘Free’ After 34 Years: Convictions Overturned For 3 Men Framed For Arson And Murder In 1980 Sackett Street Fire

Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson cited new evidence in his successful request to have the convictions overturned for three men found guilty of arson and murder in 1981.

According to ABC7 – Eyewitness News, one piece of new evidence includes the deathbed confession of a primary witness who said she had framed the three men for the fire.

Raymond Mora, William Vasquez, and Amaury Villalobos were those three men. In 1981, they were handed down a sentence of 25 years to life for arson and six murders in the fire.

While both Vasquez, 70, and Villalobos, 66, were paroled in 2012, Mora died in 1989 when he was still in prison. Vasquez, Villalobos, and Mora’s widow attended this morning’s hearing.

On February 7, 1980, a fire destroyed a Park Slope townhouse on 695 Sackett Street (between 4th and 5th Avenues). A third-floor apartment was being rented at the time by 27-year-old Elizabeth Kinsey and her five children. Their ages ranged from nine months to nine years.

Hannah Quick, who was the building owner at the time, told the fire marshal she had overheard the three men whispering in the hallway before the incident, and that they had set the townhouse on fire.

While the fire marshal would later testify that accelerant had been used, the evidence was circumstantial.

According to the New York Times, “…fire science has advanced so much since 1980 that although the marshal’s analysis made sense at the time, experts say that according to current standards, there is no evidence that arson actually occurred.”

DA Thompson told the judge in court today that the 1981 convictions “were based on weak circumstantial evidence, outdated science and the testimony of a single, wholly unreliable witness who recanted before her death.”

That recanted testimony came in 2014 when Quick — laying on her deathbed — admitted to her daughter she had framed the three men.

According to the New York Times, Quick was in no way an innocent bystander:

“At the time of the fire, Ms. Quick had just been arrested on drug charges that she ran a “shooting gallery” in her apartment, where people did heroin. In a story that often shifted, Ms. Quick said she had argued with one or two of the three men over a swap of a bad batch of drugs for a jacket, according to a summary of the case provided by the district attorney’s office. One of them threatened to return and burn her place down.”

After Quick’s death, her relatives told the DA’s office that an apartment on the first floor of 695 Sackett was routinely visited by heroine users, and that there was an illegal electrical hook-up. Most striking is that Quick received an insurance payout because of the arson and deaths — a contradiction to her testimony in the 1981 trial.

“We will now move to correct this miscarriage of justice. Even though we cannot give these men back the decades that they spent in prison, with one tragically dying behind bars, justice requires that we, as prosecutors, do the right thing and clear their names,” said Thompson in a statement.