Man Accused In Fight Was 500 Miles Away

It appeared to be a slam dunk. Both an eyewitness to a brutal beating and the victim were positive that Joe Fusco was the man responsible for the early morning scuffle outside a Palm Beach Gardens club. The case appeared to be airtight and a conviction seemed certain.

There was only one problem. Fusco wasn’t in Palm Beach Gardens that night. He wasn’t even in the state of Florida. He was on a hunting trip in Eastman, GA, and he had plenty of documentation proving it.

Fusco’s well-defended alibi erased second-degree murder charges against him. It also left everyone puzzled as to how two different witnesses – including the victim – could be so sure it was him there that night, and be so surely wrong.

The fight outside the Noche nightclub early on November 8, 2009 left Chris Bell bloodied and broken, deaf in his right ear and with a fractured scull. Eyewitness Kari Kyrda repeatedly said it was Fusco who kicked Bell in the head and stomach repeatedly. Kyrda went to high school with Fusco in Jupiter.

When Bell came to, he also identified Fusco as the man who had literally beat him into the next week. Bell and Fusco both graduated from Jupiter High in 2004, and the two knew each other.

Mistaken identifications by eyewitnesses is the leading cause of wrongful conviction by far in the United States, according to The Sun-Sentinel.

Palm Beach County police used a recent photo of Fusco and put him in a lineup with five other men who looked similar, but the witnesses still pointed to Fusco as the assailant.

But Fusco was indeed hunting in Georgia that night. He had cell phone records, receipts and even the balance from a SunPass transponder proving it, not to mention five friends with sworn affidavits who said Fusco was with them at the time. Five people who witnessed the melee also swore under oath that he was not there.

Eventually, prosecutors dropped the charges against him.

Fusco hopes to expunge his arrest in the case, but he might have trouble doing it. He was convicted of driving under the influence, and anyone convicted of a DUI in Florida can’t clear an arrest record.

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