Lawyers involved in suspected serial killer Rex Heuermann's case share close connections to each other:
Michael J. Brown, the lead defense attorney representing Heuermann, is a veteran lawyer whose connections in the Suffolk legal community run deep. Brown, who has been in private practice since 1995, started his legal career as an assistant district attorney in the Suffolk District Attorney's Office with Ray Tierney, now the elected district attorney. Tierney, a former federal prosecutor who is leading the team of prosecutors trying the case against Heuermann, will likely square off against Brown in a Riverhead courtroom if the case eventually goes to trial.
Also in the mix is Robert Macedonio, a longtime criminal defense attorney and matrimonial lawyer who shared a legal practice with Brown for a decade, and is now representing Heuermann's estranged wife, Asa Ellerup, in her divorce action.
Justice Timothy Mazzei, as a prosecutor in 1989, Mazzei lead the prosecution effort in the retrial of the John Pius murder case. Pius was the 13-year-old whose body was found behind a Smithtown elementary school in 1979 with stones crammed down his throat.
A key witness in the Pius case was ex-Suffolk Police Chief James Burke, a convicted felon for beating a handcuffed prisoner inside a police precinct in 2012 and then conspiring to cover it up. Burke has gotten into more legal trouble recently, with his August arrest for sexual misconduct at a county park. His case is pending…
Vess Mitev, the Stony Brook-based defense attorney and Ray's former law partner — the relationship apparently ended acrimonously, though neither side would discuss the details publicly — is representing Ellerup's two adult children.
"We just went our separate ways business-wise," said Mitev, when asked about leaving Ray's firm in 2020. "Business partnerships, like any relationship, sometimes work out and sometimes end. And this one had run its course."
Ray, for his part, called the parting "a terrible thing that happened" and added: "I don't really care about him at all. I don't really think about him. My tendency is when people hurt me, I just leave them alone."
Dissecting the connections in the Gilgo Beach case among Suffolk's legal community.
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