Did the Wrong Man Serve Seven Years?

Katherine Riofta wonders when her brother will get out of prison. Will it be days, weeks, or years? She's sure he didn't shoot anyone. So is a lawyer who wrote the Attorney General's office, telling them the state has the wrong man. "Alex was misidentified and wrongly convicted," says Riofta, "and they know it."

In 2001, her brother, Alexander Riofta, now 26, was convicted of first-degree assault, a case linked to the 1998 gang-related massacre at a Vietnamese karaoke bar in Tacoma, the Trang Dai, which left five dead and six wounded. Riofta, then a teenager, was found to have shot at, and missed, the brother of a witness who'd agreed to testify. He has so far done seven years based on the questionable eyewitness testimony of the victim. No fingerprints were found in a stolen car used by the gunman, nor on a spent bullet. And a white hat that flew off the head of the gunman was never tested for DNA.

Katherine Riofta recalls that an attorney whom the family hired took their money and moved to Las Vegas (he no longer practices law). They then ended up with a public defender who, Katherine says, "refused to request DNA testing." Ultimately, Riofta denied being the gunman, but the jury disagreed.

In 2002, Kristi Minchau, a Tacoma attorney who represented Jimmee Chea, a gang member convicted in the Trang Dai killings, wrote to the AG's office during Riofta's appeal. According to Minchau's letter, Chea apparently told her "who actually committed the shooting for which Alexander Riofta has been convicted and why the victim lied about the shooter's identity." Chea didn't give her permission to reveal the name of the shooter, she said, but she was allowed to say, "It is someone who has a prior conviction in Washington for a violent offense and whose DNA should be on record."

Continued Minchau: "I have absolutely no reason to doubt what Jimmee told me. I also have absolutely no stake in the Riofta case. But if this guy has been wrongly convicted, he deserves a chance at proving it." However, Pierce County prosecutors and the AG's office both oppose DNA testing of the hat, which could show it had been worn by someone other than Riofta, or that he wasn't at the scene. Citing case law, the prosecutor and AG say Riofta's defender had the chance to test the DNA early on, but didn't, and that there's no "probability of innocence" to do it now.

The case landed before the State Supreme Court last year, along with other DNA appeals sought by the University of Washington's Innocence Project Northwest. During oral arguments last October, Minchau's letter was barely mentioned. Representing the state, attorney Michelle Luna-Green suggested Riofta was merely fishing for evidence under a law intended for those "very real" situations in which a person could be innocent. It is now 11 months later, with no indication a decision will come anytime soon.