New York Officer charged in 2001 Murder

Zach Haberman:

A police sergeant long suspected in his ex-girlfriend's grisly 2001 murder was charged with her slaying yesterday after a witness finally fingered him.

Prosecutors claim NYPD Sgt. Martin Peters, 41, brutally shot Juliette Alexander, 29, three times in the head in the foyer of her Brooklyn apartment building after beating her in a dispute over child support for their two kids.

He then allegedly turned and shot his longtime pal, Nigel Callender, who had been standing nearby after dropping off clothes for the kids - as a favor to Peters, authorities said.

It was unclear why Peters shot Callender, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down.

At first, Callender was considered a possible suspect because he was found with latex gloves on his hands. But he had insisted at the time that the killer, a stranger, had made him don the gloves.

The break in the case came after the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau and Cold Case Squad got involved, and Callender finally fingered Peters, sources said.

Prosecutors said Callender revealed that Peters had threatened to kill him, his wife and kids if he didn't lie about what happened that day - even once approaching him with a pistol as he lay in his hospital bed.

Peters was arrested yesterday in a struggle with cops outside a Harlem condo complex, officials said. He was charged with second-degree murder and other charges that carry a possible prison term of 25 years to life.

The officer, who has been on modified duty at Manhattan Central Booking, appeared stoic at his arraignment in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

His lawyer, Ron Kliegerman, acknowledged his client had been at Alexander's Pulaski Avenue apartment on Jan. 16, 2001, the day she was murdered, to pick up their kids for school. But he said that was at 8:30 a.m., a half-hour before cops say she was killed.

Kliegerman suggested that Callender is trying to frame Peters to escape his own deportation woes.

The lawyer hinted that authorities threatened to deport the Trinidadian native if he didn't finger Peters.

"They interviewed this guy, Callender, for days and days after the shooting," Kliegerman said.

"You would think that if his best friend shot him and made him a paraplegic, he would [have told] the authorities" then.

Peters' relatives last night said the NYPD was trying to nail the cop because he had sued the department after being passed over for a promotion, allegedly because he is black.

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