Facing more than 60 years in prison for killing a distant cousin outside a Derby bar two years ago, Cordaryl Silva maintained his innocence Tuesday at his sentencing in the case.
Despite that, Silva called his murder conviction a “blessing in disguise” while presenting an unconventional request to Judge Denise Markle.
“Give me 63 years, the maximum,” Silva said. “I feel God’s going to overturn this case for me in time.”
Judge Markle declined to oblige, instead handing down a 50-year sentence for what she called a case of “vigilante justice.”
Afterward, Silva’s family vowed to appeal his conviction.
Background
Silva was convicted of murder in April after a five-day trial before Judge Markle at Superior Court in Milford that included two eyewitnesses who identified him as the man who shot 22-year-old Javon Zimmerman outside RJ’S Cafe on Elizabeth Street in Derby May 12, 2012.
Other evidence included surveillance videos showing Silva running from the scene, two men who said he confessed to the crime in jail and several hours of recorded interviews cops had with Silva in the days after the killing.
During the trial police witnesses painted a picture of a years-long running feud between Silva and Zimmerman that culminated in what the prosecutor in the case, Charles Stango, called a “cold-blooded,” “drug world killing.”
Police believe Silva’s feud with the Zimmermans — who cops said controlled the Valley drug trade through intimidation and violence — reached the boiling point when they allegedly stopped supporting one of Silva’s brothers while he was imprisoned on charges related to the 2009 ambush shooting of a man in Derby.
At the time of the shooting, Silva had been working as a confidential informant for the Ansonia police for months as they tried to build a case against the Zimmerman crew.
In addition to the murder charge for which he faced a maximum of 60 years behind bars, Silva also faced three years in connection with a violating a probationary term on an earlier case. He faced a minimum of 25 years behind bars Tuesday.
Click here for a story about the trial.
‘The Wheel Keeps Turning’
Stango began Tuesday’s sentencing by asking the judge to sentence Silva to 55 years in prison.
But he wondered, in light of a shooting at the same Derby bar last month, whether even that sentence might deter others from choosing violence to resolve disputes.
“Unfortunately, if you look at the headlines any day, if you look at the news for 10 minutes on any given day, you see that this particular (type of) incident, a young man or woman gunned down in the prime of their life, happens all too often,” Stango said.
Zimmerman was “shot in cold blood in front of 70 to 100 witnesses, most of whom chose not to get involved,” he pointed out.
“In the face of the worst crime one human being can commit upon another, you don’t cooperate, you don’t respond, you say you saw nothing even if you saw something,” Stango said. “That too is a phenomenon we see again and again.”
“Will the wheel keep turning? We had a shooting at RJ’s two weeks ago. It may,” Stango said. “You hope it’s going to deter other young people from engaging in the same type of behavior. I don’t know if it will.”
“They’re not thinking about what’s going to happen if they get caught,” he said. “Maybe they should be.”
‘He Believed He Was Defending Himself’
Silva’s lawyer, Lawrence Hopkins, asked the judge to consider the “background circumstances” of the case and said that even though Silva didn’t press a self-defense claim at trial, he had reason to be afraid of the Zimmerman crew.
Hopkins referred to a recording of Derby Police Detective Sgt. John Netto’s interview with Silva the day after the killing.
While trying to coax an admission out of Silva, Netto said even cops tensed up when seeing a member of the Zimmerman crew on the street.
“Consider the background circumstances involved in the case,” Hopkins said, referring to the history between Silva and the Zimmermans.
“It’s my best guess that Mr. Silva believed he was defending himself on the night in question,” Hopkins said. “Mr. Silva, being a 24-year-old young man at the time the crime occurred, was in fear for his life from the Zimmermans.”
“In his mind, I would suppose what he did to be an act of self-defense,” the lawyer said, asking Judge Markle to take that into account while formulating a sentence.
‘I’m Happy I Lost The Trial’
Silva then rose to address Judge Markle.
First, he said, “I would have something to say to the family (of Javon Zimmerman) if they were here, but they’re not.”
Though Stango lauded the courage of witnesses who eventually stepped forward in the case, Silva alleged they lied on the stand to get preferential treatment from cops.
He also pointed out that he was working with Ansonia cops to help build a case against the Zimmermmans.
“I did everything they told me to,” Silva told the judge. “I was with them every day of the week, I never lied to them about anything.”
Silva concluded his statement by asking for the maximum sentence allowable — 63 years behind bars.
“I feel like God’s going to overturn this case for me, in time,” Silva said.
“If they had sent me home that day, I know that eventually I would have got caught in some more BS because, like (Stango) said, people (are) still out there doing the same thing,” Silva said. “I don’t want to be involved in that.”
“I’m happy I lost the trial, basically. It’s a blessing in disguise,” he said. “Eventually it’ll get turned over. So give me the whole 63, because I’m not going to do half of it.”
Judge: ‘Vigilante Justice’ Can’t Be Tolerated
Judge Markle began her remarks at the sentencing by summing up the case Stango presented during the trial as “frightening evidence of your lack of respect for human life itself.”
The judge also noted that Silva’s criminal record was “quite significant” in light of his youth, and had even served a stint in prison, which often scares people straight.
“But you were unsuccessful with coming to terms with that and turning your life around,” she said.
She also noted Silva refused to talk with a probation officer who prepared a pre-sentence report after the trial, so she didn’t know much else about his background.
Judge Markle referred to Stango’s remarks about whether the case will serve as a deterrent to others by saying she visited an event at a Bridgeport park over the weekend involving “Project Longevity,” which aims to turn youths away from violence.
“There are many, many, many people, law enforcement people, programs that President Obama is backing, and community leaders and church leaders and school leaders … to stop this repeated violence,” she said, adding that she was hopeful about new approaches to stop the “cycle of vengeance” from continuing.
Sadly, that didn’t happen in Silva’s case, she said.
“Somehow, I have come to the conclusion that you really do have a twisted belief that you did the right thing,” Judge Markle said. “You say you cooperated … but you have to cooperate within the confines of rules and how things are done.
“You certainly had other options, and that was continue to work in a positive manner to get people off the street,” the judge went on. “But instead you really didn’t do that.”
“You did choose to act violently and summarily,” the judge said later. “You did it without recourse to any lawful procedures, and you did in fact apply vigilante justice. And society simply cannot tolerate this type of street crime.”
The judge then handed down a sentence of 50 years, to be followed by 10 years of special parole.
Reaction
Outside the courthouse, Silva’s father, Steven Silva, called Tuesday’s proceedings “a big joke.”
He said he felt sorry for his son, not Javon Zimmerman’s family.
“They knew what those kids were doing,” he said, noting their absence throughout the trial and at Tuesday’s sentencing. “If you were out there doing dirt, would you come?”
He said that the witnesses who testified against his son were liars and pointed out other weaknesses in the case.
“They didn’t find a murder weapon, they let the car leave the crime scene,” he said.
He said the family hopes to hire another lawyer to file an appeal in the case charging Hopkins with ineffectively assisting Silva’s defense.
Throughout the case, Silva clashed with Hopkins, and even tried to fire him minutes before testimony began in the trial.
Silva’s father also referred to the shooting at RJ’s earlier this month, saying it was perpetrated by a drug and gun dealer well known to Ansonia and Derby police who was recently released from jail.
“Somebody’s going to get killed and we’ll be back down here with this crap again,” Steven Silva said.
Stango said the judge’s sentence was fair.
“I’ve never seen in my 16-plus years (as a prosecutor) the defendant ask for the maximum on any sentence, with any charge, let alone ask for the maximum on a murder sentence,” he said.
“Mr. Silva, I think, didn’t like being not in control,” Stango said. “When he was on the street, he wanted to be in control, do things his way.
“Unfortunately, today was the time for Mr. Silva to express remorse … to express to the judge that he will hopefully learn form his actions that night at RJ’s,” Stango said. “Mr. Silva gave us none of that today.”
