Killers Back on the Street

Sidewalks with Tom Deignan

Killers Back on the Street

January 31, 2008

by Tom Deignan

THE administration of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is coming under fire following the release of over 200 convicted killers from prison. Among the killers are two who were charged with gunning down Irish New Yorkers in high profile murder cases.

First, there is former New York City cop Richard Molloy, who was sentenced to spend up to 12 years in prison back in 1999. Molloy, who had a history of violent behavior, was found guilty of killing Irish immigrant Patrick “Hessy” Phelan in the Bronx in 1996. Molloy was released from prison in January 2007, according to a recent investigation by the New York Daily News.

Also returned to the streets was Frank Solimine who, in 1982, was convicted of killing 25-year-old Patrick O’Boyle following an argument in a Woodside, Queens pub. Solimine was given a sentence that could have kept him locked up for life. Instead, he was released from prison in August of 2007.

Solimine’s release is particularly disturbing for friends and family of O’Boyle since it was revealed in 2001 that Solimine received nearly $100,000 in worker’s compensation from his former employee, the New York Transit Authority.

The decision to release a total of 215 convicted killers was made by the state parole board. Critics have charged that, under Spitzer, the number of killers granted parole has jumped. They fear that hardened criminals are being freed to potentially kill again.

“Keeping hardened criminals in prison has gotten us great results, so it’s unfortunate the pendulum is swinging back to a liberal mentality that jeopardizes our ability to live safely in our homes,” said Brooklyn State Senator Marty Golden, a former police officer who is also the son of Irish immigrants.

The parole board under Spitzer may be acting in response to a lawsuit filed on behalf of prisoners which alleges that too few criminals were being paroled under Governor George Pataki.

Either way, the controversy has resurrected two bloody episodes in Irish New York history.

The 1996 murder of Phelan, an undocumented immigrant, gripped the New York Irish community. The case hardly paints the Irish community in the most flattering light.

Molloy was accused of shooting Phelan in the head after spending the night at the Oak Bar on Bainbridge Avenue. A bartender told Molloy, who was off duty at the time, to escort Phelan home because he was too intoxicated to do so himself.

What happened next was the subject of an intense courtroom drama. As part of his defense against murder charges, Molloy said that Phelan grabbed his service revolver and shot himself in the head.

However, a medical report based on Phelan’s wounds suggested he did not actually commit suicide. In addition, a witness in the apartment, who also admitted to drinking that evening, disputed Molloy’s efforts to prove that Phelan had actually shot himself.

During the trial, it was also revealed that Molloy had a history of violence within the Irish community. In 1995, for example, he was accused of waving his pistol in a pub crowded with fans watching an Irish football championship match. He was even accused, that same year, of leaving a Bronx bar, standing outside and firing off numerous rounds from a semi-automatic weapon.

Several other incidents of Molloy’s menacing gunplay in bars were revealed during the Phelan murder trial.

The case itself opened rifts in the New York Irish community. Phelan was a known Irish Nationalist from Derry who had spent time in Northern Irish prisons, and was seen by some as a man who’d been abused by police officers in both New York and the North.

Molloy, however, had Irish American supporters whose links to the NYPD were strong, and felt he was being railroaded by an illegal immigrant who had too much to drink.

Either way, Molloy ended up serving just seven years for the murder of Phelan.

Solimine, meanwhile, served about 25 years in prison. That’s one year for every year Patrick O’Boyle was alive.

At the age of 25, O’Boyle was gunned down by Solimine in 1980 following an argument in a Woodside pub. Sentenced to 17 years to life, Solimine was in the news in 2001 when it was revealed that he was receiving almost $5,000 a year from his former employee, because he failed to disclose that he had been sent to prison.

Like Molloy, Solimine now walks the very streets upon which he once committed murder.

Share this story: digg this | Add to del.icio.us

Print Save Discussions

Discuss

Email a friend