Sister looking for answers after brother's death

Maria Tolentino looked up at the third-floor window and then back down at the weeds and dirt where her brother fell to his death five months ago.

She had never visited Dario Tena's Yonkers apartment while he lived there. And she knew nothing about the drugs police claimed were packaged there. She said she just knows he wouldn't have tried to go out that window.

"Even if it is true, about the drugs, if you are doing something incorrectly, you go to jail," she told The Journal News. "You don't have to die for that. This is like the death penalty they gave him."

Tena died March 21 when he fell more than 30 feet to his death out the window at 141 School St. Police said he tried to escape when they arrived to execute a search warrant. They said he was 45, although his sister insists he was only 43. The police said they found drugs, a scale used to measure drugs, drug-packaging material and cash in the apartment.

But Tolentino does not believe the police version, particularly after learning that the anti-crime officers and narcotics detectives who raided the apartment that Friday night entered on a falsified search warrant.

Following Tena's death, the Yonkers police Internal Affairs Division and the Westchester County District Attorney's Office began an investigation. In May, it was determined that the affidavit that led a judge to issue the search warrant contained "material false statements." The detective who swore to the affidavit, Christian Koch, and Police Officer Neil Vera, who provided some of the information for the affidavit, were relieved of their guns and badges in late July.

The district attorney's office over the past month has dismissed drug charges against nine defendants in six cases unrelated to Tena's death because Koch and/or Vera were involved in some way. Prosecutors are continuing to look at potentially tainted cases, including some in which the defendants were already convicted.

The medical examiner's office completed its autopsy report recently and presented its findings to prosecutors in late August. But citing the ongoing investigation, the medical examiner's office and District Attorney Janet DiFiore's spokesman would not release the cause of death or any other details of the report.

Yonkers police have refused to comment on the case. Asked to respond to Tolentino's comments, Detective Lt. Patrick McCormack reissued a statement from Commissioner Charles Gardner from last month. In it, Gardner said a "thorough review" of the incident was continuing and that "we take all allegations of wrongdoing by members of our department very seriously."

Tolentino said nobody has reached out to her about the autopsy report and she has not heard from Yonkers detectives in months, fueling her suspicions.

If police have nothing to hide, she said, they should show her all of the video surveillance tapes that were collected from inside the building and any nearby properties.

Tolentino, who lives in the Bronx, had been to the building and talked to neighbors in the weeks following her brother's death. But she had never ventured into the backyard until late last month, when she was accompanied by a reporter. She said the crowds at his funeral in the Bronx and burial in their native Dominican Republic spoke of his friendship and willingness to help others.

"He was a nice, quiet guy," she said. "People loved him."

If Tena was involved with drugs, it was a side close friend Rafael Guerrero said he never saw. The two worked out regularly together at a gym on South Broadway and played on the same softball team for several years.

"Chichi was like a brother to me," Guerrero said, using Tena's nickname. "I was shocked when I heard what happened. ... It was corruption. You have to do things by the proper guidelines and they didn't."

Tolentino said she is trying to find a lawyer to help get answers to her questions.

"(The police) have to do more on this and tell us the truth — so our mother will be satisfied that he didn't just throw himself down," she said.

Twitter: @jonbandler