ALBANY, N.Y. — A Cairo man charged with second-degree murder in the August stabbing death of a Catskill man was arraigned Tuesday in a hospital bed at Albany Medical Center, the Greene County District Attorney’s Office said.
Acting Greene County Judge Amy Joyce presided over the arraignment, which was conducted in the hospital because Jeffrey Field is recovering from injuries he suffered in a car crash following the stabbing.
When Field’s attorney, Thomas Melanson, objected because the arraignment was not taking place in Greene County, Joyce entered a plea of not guilty on the defendant’s behalf, according to the DA’s office.
Joyce ordered Field held without bail, and he likely will be moved to the Albany Med wing reserved for state hospitalized prison inmates, the prosecutor’s office said.
All future proceedings in the case are to be held in Greene County.
A Greene County grand jury has indicted Field for second-degree murder for the fatal stabbing of Adam White, 28, in a residence on Summit Avenue in Catskill. Field also was indicted for attempted murder for the nonfatal stabbing of Christoper Gere in the same incident.
Field is accused of stabbing White in the chest and the back, and Gere in the back, about 1:20 a.m. Aug. 22. A pathologist concluded White’s heart and spleen were penetrated by the stabbing, causing his death, the DA’s office said previously.
Authorities say White and Gere were attacked by Field and Michael White (no relation to Adam). Michael White, 30, was charged with second-degree murder the day of the stabbings, and the DA’s office has said a grand jury still is considering the case against him.
Under New York state law, a person can be charged with murder if they participate in a felony during which someone is killed, regardless of whether the person directly caused the death.
Michael White also was charged with the felonies of assault and tampering with evidence, according to state police.
The Greene County DA’s office said that after the stabbings in Catskill, Field drove to the Saratoga County town of Greenfield, where he committed two home invasions and a carjacking and then “led police on a high-speed chase [during which] he lost control of the vehicle he hijacked and crashed into a tree.”
