Family of NYC cop thrown off a Times Square roof battles killer — and his pricey lawyers — over parole bid

A killer who threw an NYPD cop off a Times Square roof 35 years ago will soon have his third parole hearing in two years – pitting the officer’s family in a “nightmare” battle against a high-powered law firm that’s already sprung another cop killer.

Eddie Matos, who murdered Midtown South Officer Anthony Dwyer in October 1989, was granted repeated appeals with the help of lawyer Isaac Zaur, a partner at the Madison Avenue law firm Clarick Gueron Reisbaum. 

“It’s like a joke and a nightmare,” said the slain cop’s younger sister Maureen Brisett, as she prepared to testify Friday with her two brothers and 83-year-old mom at the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision’s Midtown office. “I just don’t understand how he keeps getting chances and then he has these high-powered lawyers taking on his case.”

Forty-three NYC cop killers have been released since 2017 when the left-leaning state Parole Board, whose members were mostly appointed by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, began letting cop killers off in droves under new rules.

Dwyer, 23, and two other cops responded to a call of an armed robbery of a McDonald’s restaurant on Seventh Avenue and W. 40th Street on Oct. 17, 1989, and saw Matos fleeing to the roof, according to court records.

“As soon as my brother got up there, Matos was waiting and kicked him down an air shift and then escaped,” Brisett said. “When the other cops got up there, my brother said he was pushed, and was in and out of consciousness.” 

Dwyer, who plummeted 40 feet, later died at Bellevue Hospital.

Matos, 57, was sentenced in 1990 to 25 years to life for second-degree murder. He has been denied parole more than a dozen times and is jailed at the maximum-security Green Haven Correctional Facility upstate.

On its website, Zaur’s firm boasts “extensive experience representing companies and individuals in the art and entertainment industry.” It also handles bankrupcy and corporate cases.

Zaur’s company bio boasts that he “assisted and represented [an] applicant for parole in multiple appeals . . . leading ultimately to release after forty years’ imprisonment.” That former inmate, Tommy Nelson, killed 109 Precinct Police Officer Anthony Abruzzo in December 1981.

Matos was denied parole in April 2023 but successfully appealed and got a new hearing the following year. He was denied parole again in April 2024 and with Zaur’s help challenged the board in court again.

Matos will appear before the board sometime later this month on that appeal, state records show. Even if he loses again, a fifth regularly scheduled hearing is still set for later this year.

Zaur also successfully fought to have the record changed in Matos’ case, convincing the state to remove language about Matos pushing the cop off the roof.

Matos’ amended parole packet now reads: “The subject fled to the roof where he was chased by a police officer. … The officer in pursuit fell to his death.”

Matos has also advocated for changing the state parole system, submitting testimony to the state senate pushing an amendment to state law to place less emphasis on the original offense and more focus on “the hard work, time and effort incarcerated people put in to better themselves.”

“I truly do not understand why I am continually denied parole,” Matos wrote.

Brisett can’t understand why they would ever consider freeing the man who ended her brother’s life when she was 11.

“I feel like we’re trying to sell my brother’s life to these strangers,” said Brisett, a mother of two.

“It’s gonna be three times in almost a year that we’re saying what a great guy my brother was and what a scumbag this guy was every time,” she said. “It’s just like a popularity contest.”

Her mother doesn’t understand why her son’s killer gets another shot at life but her son doesn’t.

“I would like him to stay in jail until the day he dies,” Marge Dwyer said. “I pray for that to happen and that I never have to come down here again to defend my son, as if we did something wrong. We shouldn’t be the ones who are on trial.”

Patrolman’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry called the law firm “pro criminal.”

“People need to understand the anti-police, the pro-criminal protesters aren’t just a group of radicals on the street,” the union president said outside the state office.

“They’re deep-pocketed corporate attorneys who will do any . . . trick in the book to get a cop killer a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth bite at the apple — even if it means putting this family through hell.”

Zaur didn’t return an email seeking comment.