Defense attorney Stewart Orden delivers his closing remarks in his client's attempted murder trial Monday. <\/p>\n
Westchester assistant district attorney Christine O'Connor shows the jury the shotgun used to shoot a prominent doctor from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai outside a deli in Chappaqua.(Photo: Screen Grab from Pool Video) <\/p>\n
Jurors will start deciding Tuesday whether the shooting of a medical school dean in Chappaqua last year was an act of violent revenge or a fired researcher's bid to publicize what he thought was the dean's medical fraud. <\/p>\n
Hengjun Chao insists he did not try to kill, hurt or even hit Dr. Dennis Charney, aiming instead at the cup of iced coffee in his hand, when he fired a shotgun blast outsideLange's Little Store & Delicatessen last summer. <\/p>\n
He didn't want revenge against Charney, who had fired him as a researcher at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Chao insisted as he testified Monday as the final - and only defense - witness at his attempted-murder trial in Westchester County Court. <\/p>\n
\"Because I hate him doesn't mean I want to kill him or injure him,\" Chao told Assistant District Attorney Christine O'Connor. \"I want to expose him.\" <\/p>\n
DEFENDANT: Chao takes stand at attempted murder trial <\/p>\n
CHAPPAQUA: Man shot doctor to expose fraud, lawyer says. <\/p>\n
DELI SHOOTING: Man targets former boss, cops say. <\/p>\n
The prosecutor countered later that the planning, type of ammunition and Charney's injuries belied Chao's claims. <\/p>\n
\"You use that instrument of death ... you are going to kill,\" O'Connor told the jury, adding that only luck prevented this from being a murder trial. This is not a spur of the moment (act). This is a product of calculation. This is a product of hate.\" <\/p>\n
Westchester Assistant District Attorney Christine O'Connor delivers closing arguments in the attempted murder trial of Hengjun Chao. <\/p>\n
Chao hit Charney with buckshot pellets from less than 15 feet away on themorning of Aug. 29. The 50-year-old Tuckahoe resident is charged with second-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault and first-degree criminal use of a firearm. <\/p>\n
He could go to prison for as long as 25 years. But his lawyer, Stewart Orden, askedjurors to acquit him because he had no intent to commit any crime when he fired that gun. <\/p>\n
Chao claimed it wasn't until hours later, when a detective told him, that he learned Charney had been shot - even though he told the first New Castle police officer who arrived on the scene \"Ijust shot an (expletive).\" <\/p>\n
\"I didn't see any blood,\" he told Orden. \"He looked at me. I looked at him. He stood there steadily.\" <\/p>\n
Charney was bleeding from the shoulder. He was hospitalized for five days and testified that hehad pain and limited range of motion in his right arm for a lengthy period after that. <\/p>\n
Chao was fired in 2010 for research fraud after three years of inquiry, investigation and appeals, all while he was able to continue working. After leaving Mount Sinai, he briefly held other, less significant lab jobs. He insisted he never doctored data and was retaliated against for making a similar claim against one of his researchers. He unsuccessfully sued the school in federal court, lost his federal appeal and the U.S. Supreme Court would not hear his case. <\/p>\n
His civil lawyer brought medical journal articles to his attention that suggested Charney was not the esteemed psychiatrist people thought he was. <\/p>\n
Chao insisted he had gotten over losing his job and for a few years was content to let things go as his wife had suggested. But in the summer of 2015 he was cleaning out his basement he picked up some of the journal articles and blogs. <\/p>\n
He was particularly incensed because he was convinced Charney was in cahoots with the maker of the anti-depressant Plaxil, encouraging doctors to prescribe it even though it was known to increase the likelihood of teen suicide. <\/p>\n
\"I started having nightmares,\" he said. <\/p>\n
Defense lawyer Stewart Orden demonstrates how his client's shotgun blast came out in a cone-shaped pattern.(Photo: Screen Grab from Pool Video) <\/p>\n
In his closing arguments, Orden called those impressions \"devastating\" to Charney's reputation, at least in his client's mind. <\/p>\n
\"It doesn't have to be true,\" Orden said. \"What I suggest it must be was it affected my client.\" <\/p>\n
O'Connor argued that Chao, who had spent more than $200,000 in legal fees \"and got nothing,\" could notget over the realization that he'd never again reach the pinnacle he'd attained at Mount Sinai and held Charney responsible for that. <\/p>\n
She said Chao was \"obsessed with hatred for Charney\" and denounced his accusations against the dean. <\/p>\n
\"It was a clear campaign of character assassination,\" O'Connor said of Chao's testimony. \"And I submit it had nothing to do with why he shot him.\" <\/p>\n
Chao said he decided he would get himself arrested so that he would have the opportunity to speak out. He figured the best way would be to use a gun, considering the public's sensitivity to gun violence. <\/p>\n
Hengjun Chao listens as his defense attorney attempts to acquit him for the attempted murder of his former boss, who he shot outside a Chappaqua deli.(Photo: Screen Grab from Pool Video) <\/p>\n
He staked out Charney's home in Chappaqua, but grew worried that firing at him there could injure children if any were nearby. Once he learned the dean's routine, he settled on Lange's Little Store & Delicatessen. <\/p>\n
Chao conceded it was him in the black Lexus SUV and the red Toyota Corrolla captured on videotape in the days leading up to the shooting. <\/p>\n
\"Every morning when I left my home I was hesitating should I do this or not. I'm begging for criminal charges against myself,\" he said, concluding that it was worth the risk. <\/p>\n
He said he loaded the shotgun in his basement, but never intended to fire more than once. He figured he could make clear his intention afterward by pointing to the extra rounds in the gun and say that if he wanted to hit anyone he could have fired all the shots. <\/p>\n
He insisted he did not fire at Charney's chest. And Orden argued that the evidence of where the pellets scattered - to Charney's right side and beyond him, and not to his left side or his car to his left - proved he wasn't aiming for center mass and could have been trying to avoid hitting him altogether. <\/p>\n
But O'Connor suggested Charney's survival could be chalked up to luck and not Chao's careful marksmanship. <\/p>\n
O'Connor asked Chao why he didn't simply run into the deli and grab Charney, or fire the gun in the air or into the ground. <\/p>\n
Chao suggested the first option wouldn't have interested anyone. The second could have injured people. <\/p>\n
Why didn't he just accost Charney at gunpoint days earlier when two New Castle police cars were at the deli the same time Charney was, O'Connor wondered. The cops would have shot him, Chao said. <\/p>\n
\"And you didn't want THAT to happen?\" O'Connor asked. <\/p>\n
\"If I dead, who will tell the story?\" he answered. <\/p>\n
O'Connor also asked him why he didn't try to shoot the authors of the study that sought to legitimize Paxil. Regarding one of them, Chao said it was because he had already been exposed and fined. <\/p>\n
O'Connor in her summation offered an alternative reason. <\/p>\n
\"Because they (the authors) didn't fire (Chao),\" she told the jury. \"He went to kill Charney because Charney took his life away.\" <\/p>\n
The jury will begin deliberating Tuesday morning after getting legal instructions from Westchester County Judge Barry Warhit. <\/p>\n
Twitter: @jonbandler <\/p>\n
Read or Share this story: http:\/\/www.lohud.com\/story\/news\/crime\/2017\/06\/12\/chappaqua-shooter-wanted-expose-med-school-dean\/389562001\/<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n See the rest here: <\/p>\n Chappaqua shooter: I wanted to 'expose' med school dean not kill or ... - The Journal News | LoHud.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Defense attorney Stewart Orden delivers his closing remarks in his client's attempted murder trial Monday. Westchester assistant district attorney Christine O'Connor shows the jury the shotgun used to shoot a prominent doctor from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai outside a deli in Chappaqua.(Photo: Screen Grab from Pool Video) Jurors will start deciding Tuesday whether the shooting of a medical school dean in Chappaqua last year was an act of violent revenge or a fired researcher's bid to publicize what he thought was the dean's medical fraud. Hengjun Chao insists he did not try to kill, hurt or even hit Dr Continue reading