Appellate Court in New Jersey Remands For Further Consideration of Whether State’s Star Witness Received Crime Stoppers Reward

In the Adnan Syed case, we’ve spent years trying to track down who received the CrimeStoppers reward in the Hae Min Lee case and whether that person was a witness for the prosecution. At this point, we have an email from Metro CrimeStoppers, which states in pertinent pert that:

If that tipster turns out to be a State’s witness, would that be grounds for reversing his convictions? There’s not much case law on the issue, but a New Jersey appellate court issued an interesting one last week.

In State v. Allen, 2025 WL 1658070 (N.J. App. 2025), Yusef B. Allen moved to overturn his 1999 murder conviction. Part of his motion included a subpoena that sought information from the Union County Crime Stoppers program regarding whether it paid a reward to a key State witness: Waller. The judge hearing the appeal quickly “declined to enforce the subpoenas but permitted counsel to file a motion for reconsideration should evidence come to light that Waller received some sort of payment.

In remanding on this issue, the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, ruled as follows:

Here, the motion judge quickly dispatched defendant’s subpoena arguments, stating, “[d]efendant’s allegation that [Waller] received a reward in exchange for her testimony is completely unsupported by any evidence.” The judge told defendant he could file for reconsideration if evidence came to light that Waller received some sort of payment.

We are not satisfied that the motion judge provided adequate reasons explaining his decision….The purpose of the subpoena, after all, was to determine whether Waller received a cash reward for her cooperation. If defendant already had such evidence, presumably, he would not need to subpoena the program and prosecutor to learn whether such a reward had been made.

The record, moreover, is unclear on how Crime Stoppers operates and whether the decision to pay a reward is made by or with input from the prosecutor. Nor did the motion judge make any findings with respect to what records are kept to document cash rewards.

In these circumstances, we deem it appropriate to remand for additional fact-finding. We note the State argues in its appeal brief that the prosecutor “responded [to defendant’s argument to the motion judge] that [the Union County Prosecutors Office] was looking through its files to see if there was any information showing anything relating to Crime Stoppers.” The State posits, “there is nothing in the record to show that the subpoenas had been ignored. Rather, it would appear more likely that neither party found any information concerning any payment made to Waller, which is why defense counsel never filed a [m]otion for [r]econsideration.”

That may well be true, in which event the remand can be resolved by the motion judge in short order. However, we decline on this sparse record to speculate on whether a record of a reward payment to Waller exists.

In sum, we instruct the motion judge to make specific findings of fact and conclusions of law on whether defendant has the right in these circumstances to enforce the subpoena. If the judge determines after hearing from the prosecutor and program that no such records exist, the subpoena issue shall be deemed resolved. If the judge determines records that Waller received a payment do exist, the court shall enforce the subpoena subject to any arguments the State may make that the records should not be disclosed to defendant.10

Finally, we decline to put the cart before the proverbial horse by considering the potential impact that evidence of a cash reward paid to Waller would have under the Brady/Carter doctrines. We thus offer no opinion on whether and to what extent any such reward arrangement, if established, would constitute a material fact bearing on defendant’s right to a new trial. Nor do we consider at this juncture whether any evidence Waller received a cash reward for her cooperation would be cumulative with the other evidence the defense used to challenge her credibility at trial. Rather, we leave that analysis for the motion judge to make in the first instance if and when evidence Waller received a cash reward is revealed.

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