By Jessica Dye

NEW YORK, Feb 21 (Reuters) - A man who spent nearly 15 years in prison for kidnapping before his indictment was dismissed has filed a $43 million lawsuit against New York City and Manhattan prosecutors.

Giuseppe D'Alessandro said in the lawsuit, filed Thursday in Brooklyn federal court, that prosecutors failed to alert the court to a case that held that prosecutors' unjustified delay in producing grand jury minutes must be counted against the time they have to bring a case to trial.

If prosecutors had made the court aware of the 1990 New York Court of Appeals decision in People v. McKenna, D'Alessandro said he would not have spent years in prison, according to the complaint.

"Had the court been alerted to McKenna, it would have granted the plaintiff's speedy trial motion and dismissed the indictment in 1990," the complaint said.

The complaint names Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, as well as the assistant district attorney who tried the case, Brenda Morris. It also names unidentified members of the DA's office and members of the New York City Police Department.

The lawsuit alleges that D'Alessandro's constitutional rights to a fair trial and due process, among others, were violated by prosecutors' failure to tell the court about McKenna.

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney's office declined to comment. The New York City Law Department said it has yet to receive a copy of the complaint.

D'Alessandro, who managed a restaurant in Manhattan, was charged in 1989 with second-degree kidnapping, after allegedly holding hostage an employee suspected of stealing money. He rejected a plea deal, and prosecutors in 1990 filed a superseding indictment charging him with first-degree kidnapping.

QUESTION OF SIX MONTHS

D'Alessandro had moved to dismiss the second indictment, arguing that prosecutors ran out of time to bring the case under the speedy trial provisions set forth in CPL 30.30. The statute gives prosecutors six months to be ready to try a felony case, unless a judge allows certain time periods to be excluded.

D'Alessandro had argued prosecutors had improperly excluded 196 days of delay while he waited for them to hand over grand jury minutes, according to the complaint

The trial judge rejected the motion, and D'Alessandro was convicted of kidnapping and sentenced to 15 years to life. In 1996, the Appellate Division, First Department, upheld the conviction, after D'Alessandro's appellate lawyers failed to raise the speedy trial issue.

D'Alessandro served 14-1/2 years before being released on parole in 2007, the complaint said. He revived his appeal, and in 2010 the First Department reversed the conviction and dismissed the indictment. The court found that D'Alessandro had received ineffective counsel from lawyers who had failed to raise whether his right to a speedy trial had been violated.

In addition to claiming his constitutional rights were violated, Thursday's lawsuit says prosecutors and police officers conducted a flawed investigation and that prosecutors proceeded with the first-degree kidnapping charge as retribution for his failure to take the plea offer.

D'Alessandro is seeking $28 million in compensatory damages and an additional $15 million in punitive damages.

He is also pursuing a $26 million legal malpractice case against two attorneys who represented him on appeal. Last year, a Manhattan Supreme Court judge denied the attorneys' motion to dismiss.

The case is D'Alessandro v. City of New York, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, No. 13-930.

For D'Alessandro: Brian Gardner of Sullivan Gardner.

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