13-year coma ends in death, charge

NEW YORK -- A man who spent nearly seven years in prison for his role in a 1989 assault was arrested again, days after the victim died following 13 years in a coma, authorities said.

Mervil Granja, 35, was arrested Thursday, after the Brooklyn District Attorney reclassified the case as a homicide, said Detective Joe Cavitolo, a police spokesman. The charges against Granja were not immediately known.

Granja was convicted of second-degree assault for standing by while Matthew Young, now 33, beat Michael Slow, 38, with a baseball bat.

Slow died Monday at Seaview Rehabilitation Center on Staten Island. He had been in a coma since the May 5, 1989, beating in Brooklyn.

Granja was released from prison in 1996. Young was released last summer after serving more than 11 years for first-degree assault.

Police said Young probably attacked Slow to avenge an earlier assault in which the 6-foot-3, 230-pound man was humiliated by Slow, who stood only 5 feet 5 inches tall.

There was no telephone listing for Young in New York.