Peter benitez from edenwald projects crime

BRONX SUPREME COURT- Two men accused in a 2012 murder have spent nearly seven years on Rikers Island and other detention facilities while awaiting trial–their incarceration a striking example of the case backlog plaguing the Bronx judicial system.

Craig Whitefield, 44, and Alonzo Johnson, 41, are accused of killing Jose Andujar and robbing  Angel Mangual at the Edenwald Houses, the Bronx’s largest public housing project, in April 2012. 

Both men were convicted of murder by a jury in April 2015, but saw their convictions reversed following revelations that a police officer sitting on the jury had “clearly showed a predisposition to believe that police officers testify truthfully,” and should never have been allowed on the panel, records show.

In between their convictions and the reversals, the men also spent some time in state prison, records show.

Defendants in murder cases are typically held without bail pending trial in New York City, and spend about a year and