By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — A teen testifying against a Chinatown teen accused of stabbing him and murdering his friend changed his story on the stand Thursday about having seen the alleged crime.
Vincent Rivera, 17, who was slashed in the neck during a Hester Street melee last year where his friend, Nelson Pena, was stabbed to death, initially told detectives that he did not see who killed Pena. Then, during testimony Thursday, he said it was Victor Fong, 18, who is accused of murdering Pena and trying to kill Rivera.
"Now Mr. Rivera, you didn't see who stabbed your friend Nelson Pena, did you?," Robert Brown, Fong's attorney, asked while cross-examining Rivera on the third day of Fong's trial.
"I did," Rivera insisted.
Brown then read from a Nov. 18, 2009, police report which said Rivera he did not see the fatal stabbing.
"Is it your testimony that it's the same person who stabbed you?" Brown pressed.
"Yes," said Rivera.
Fong's attorneys have argued that a grocery store's outdoor surveillance video, which was entered into evidence on Thursday, exonerates Fong because it proves he was on the other side of Hester Street when Pena was stabbed to death.
The video shows Rivera beating someone off-frame with a metal cane. The person he was beating, Rivera claimed, was Fong, who he claimed was fighting with Pena beforehand.
He was not asked to identify Fong, who was sitting in the general audience of the court room among other Asian males his age, on the judge's order.
Jesus Baez, the prosecution's star witness who was "missing in action" yesterday was expected to testify after Rivera on Thursday.
Jesus Baez, the prosecution's star witness who was "missing in action" yesterday was expected to testify after Rivera on Thursday.
Baez went missing because he was scared to testify following purported threats from people in his Lower East Side neighborhood who considered him a "snitch," prosecutors said.
