Grad Student Posts $400 K Bail

Alexander Pring-Wilson, the former Harvard graduate student convicted last year in the fatal stabbing of a Cambridge teen, was released from jail last Friday after posting $400,000 bail.

Pring-Wilson, who has spent the last eight months in state prison, is now free as he awaits a new trial on manslaughter charges, which stem from an April 2003 fight outside a Cambridge pizza parlor that left Michael D. Colono dead.

The judge in the original case, Regina L. Quinlan, granted Pring-Wilson a retrial on June 24, citing a recent Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) decision that increases how much juries can learn about the violent pasts of victims.

Although he is free, Pring-Wilson, a former student at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, must comply with several restrictions Quinlan placed on his travel. He will not be able to leave Massachusetts to live with his family in Colorado, and he must also surrender his passport and wear an electronic tracking bracelet.

Additionally, once Pring-Wilson establishes a residence in the state, he will not be able to leave his home except for brief visits to his doctor and lawyer.

James Sultan, one of Pring-Wilson’s defense attorneys, declined to discuss where and how Pring-Wilson is living, saying he was concerned for Pring-Wilson’s privacy and safety.

“[There are] people out there who don’t want to see the justice system work, [so] better safe than sorry,” Sultan said.

But Sultan added that, as of yet, Pring-Wilson has received “no concrete threats” against him.

Pring-Wilson probably will not appear in court again for months, as prosecutors plan to appeal Quinlan’s decision to grant a retrial.

According to a spokeswoman for Middlesex County District Attorney Martha Coakley, if the prosecution’s appeal is unsuccessful, a retrial is unlikely to begin until next year.

At issue in the appeal is a March 2005 SJC ruling that allows juries to learn of victims’ violent pasts if it can help them determine who was the aggressor in a fight.

Although Quinlan was not forced to apply that decision retroactively to Pring-Wilson’s October 2004 conviction, she did, writing in April 2005 court documents that the “integrity of the evidence has been rendered suspect.”

Jurors in the original trial convicted Pring-Wilson of stabbing Colono, then 18 years old, during an April 12, 2003 confrontation outside Pizza Ring on Western Avenue. Pring-Wilson testified that he attacked Colono in self-defense, after being beaten by Colono and his cousin, Samuel L. Rodriguez—both of whom had prior criminal records involving drugs and violence. But prosecutors claimed Pring-Wilson had started the fight.

Pring-Wilson was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Last week, three members of the original jury sent a letter to the Boston Globe expressing concern that a second trial, in which the defense could be allowed to discuss Colono’s and Rodriguez’ pasts, could devolve into a spectacle of “race and class.”

Sultan, one of Pring-Wilson’s lawyers, said that Colono’s and Rodriguez’ violent histories “have nothing to do with their race or class.”

“We’re very optimistic,” Sultan said. “We believe that a jury hearing all the relevant facts is going to acquit [Pring-Wilson].”

­—Staff writer Brendan R. Linn can be reached at blinn@fas.harvard.edu.