BROOKLYN — The computer hacker prodigy accused of groping three girls in Park Slope in 2013 was acquitted on all charges last week, his lawyer told DNAinfo.
Jesse Dailey, 37, was arrested after he was identified by the young victims, one of whom who had been shown a picture of him two days before the lineup, the lawyer, Matthew Galluzzo, said during a phone interview Friday.
Dailey, whose rise from a self-taught computer programmer from Idaho to the University of Chicago graduate was chronicled in the book "Geeks," was ultimately cleared on all counts last Monday, the Brooklyn Paper first reported.
He was also cleared of charges of assaulting an officer after a Brooklyn detective spotted him in the street before his arrest and asked for identification.
The detective said he resisted arrested and accosted her, but Galluzzo said he the officer never identified herself and Dailey thought he was being mugged.
"We didn’t have enough evidence to prove it was Jesse Dailey," Alley Olivier, a reporter who served on the jury, told the Brooklyn Paper. "He seemed like a victim of wrong place, wrong time."
Galluzzo blamed the identification process, which he said biased the young witnesses against Dailey.
In one instance, the lawyer said that a detective showed the victim photo of Dailey prior to the line up.
"Showing a single photo of a suspect to an identifying witness prior to a real identification procedure like a lineup is usually considered to be very problematic," the lawyer said. "Because it tends to suggest that you think this is the person, the suspect, and it can interfere with the memory an identifying witness has."
Galluzzo said that he hopes the trial helps push through reforms regarding witness identification.
“There are a lot of things that New York State ought to be doing to make lineup procedures safer, more reliable, more fair, that they’re not doing,” the lawyer said. “I think this case really emphasized that.”
The lawyer said Dailey is trying to put the whole case behind him, but supporters were still stunned that he was put through the ordeal.
“These horrible things do happen and this seems to be one of those things because there’s just no evidence,” said author Jon Katz, who wrote a book documenting Dailey’s rise out of poverty through his computer skills.
“And to put somebody through this for years, he’s been terrified about going to jail and ruining his life. This is a kid who worked so hard to pull himself up and got himself through the University of Chicago by himself, really with no help.”
The Brooklyn District Attorney's Office declined to comment on the verdict.
