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January 7, 2008

High court upholds man's conviction in 1991 killing

The state Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of Nelson Bido, who is serving a life sentence for aiding and abetting the ambush murder of a bookkeeper who was trying to deposit more than $20,000 in 1991.

Bido's Superior Court conviction came some 15 years after bookkeeper Jorge Confessor was shot in the back.

The high court opinion, written by Justice Paul Suttell and made public today, states that for reasons not disclosed in the record, grand jury proceedings had not been finished in time following the shooting and Bido had been released before he was later arrested in 2005 when trying to leave the country.

Bido argued in the appeal that the trial judge erred by denying four things: Bido's motion to dismiss for lack of a speedy trial; Bido's motion for a continuance to secure a new lawyer; Bido's motion for a continuance to investigate recently disclosed discovery; and Bido's motion to suppress a statement he have to New York City police.

On April 15, 1991, Confessor drove into the Citizens Bank parking lot on Cranston Street with a paper bag containing receipts from several businesses when two men exited a car and a third sat at the wheel. One man pushed Confessor and the other shot him.

Confessor, 44, died before help arrived.

The police got witness descriptions of the three men and the car's license plate.

In July 1991, New York City police arrested Bido. While handcuffed in the back seat of a New York City police car, he leaned forward and said, “I know what this is about. This is about Rhode Island.”

Investigators said they found $1,700 in cash and the murder weapon in Bido's residence in Providence.

During questioning by New York City police, Bido said that on the day of the murder he loaned his car to a friend Yovanny. Bido said he knew Yovanny and two other males planned to rob a courier because Yovanny told him so. Bido said he followed Yovanny to the bank in another car, but lost sight of him before hearing a gunshot.

Then came, as the high court put it, an unexpected turn. Bido, remaining in jail, and his girlfriend, Rosalinda Colon, got married, "apparently so that Ms. Colon could not be used as a witness against him,"the high court opinion says. Providence police went to New York to extradite Bido, "but for reasons that are not disclosed in the record, the grand jury proceedings were not completed within the required period and Mr. Bido was released from custody."

Bido was sentenced by Superior Court Judge Gilbert V. Indeglia in September 2006, some 15 years after the crime. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security had arrested him in New York City the year as he tried to travel out of the country, and he was brought back to Rhode Island.

The prosecution called 10 witnesses to testify in Superior Court, including Colon, described in the high court opinion as Bido's "now-estranged wife." The defense called no witnesses. A jury convicted Bido of conspiracy to commit robbery and aiding and abetting murder. Bido got a life sentence for the murder charge and a concurrent term of 10 years for the robbery charge.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in Bido's appeal, among several cases, when it convened in South Kingstown in November.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney, with Journal archival reports

Posted by Mike McKinney  at 2:07 PM | Permalink

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