A photograph of one other particular person with the identical identify led to the wrongful arrest of a New York City man who was exonerated and freed after spending greater than 18 years behind bars for homicide.
The prosecution of Sheldon Thomas, now 35, “was compromised from the very start by grave errors and lack of probable cause” to arrest him for the deadly capturing of 14-year-old Anderson Bercy on December 24, 2004, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez mentioned as his workplace moved to vacate Thomas’ conviction.
Thomas was one among three individuals charged with killing Bercy and wounding one other teenager in a drive-by capturing.
“When I was in my cell, I would think of this moment and replay the conversations I would have with myself, what I would say,” Thomas mentioned in courtroom, the place he additionally provided condolences to the sufferer’s household.
“Right now, I’m speechless.”
After arriving for the listening to in handcuffs, he left with an arm round his grandmother and plans for a dinner of oxtail.
A assessment of the case by the district lawyer’s Conviction Review Unit discovered that the lead detective within the Bercy capturing requested to unseal a previous arrest of Thomas for allegedly pointing an inoperable gun at cops in order that detectives may use his image in a photograph lineup.
Detectives additionally obtained a photograph of a special Sheldon Thomas and confirmed it to a witness they have been questioning in Bercy’s capturing.
The witness recognized the second Sheldon Thomas as being within the automobile the photographs have been fired from, the investigation discovered.
Based on that identification, detectives went to the house of the primary Sheldon Thomas and arrested him, investigators mentioned.
The defective picture identification got here to gentle throughout a June 2006 pretrial listening to when Detective Robert Reedy admitted on cross-examination that the defendant’s picture had not been within the line-up.
The choose nonetheless discovered that there was possible trigger to arrest Thomas primarily based on “verified information from unknown callers” and the truth that he supposedly resembled the opposite Thomas, investigators mentioned.
Thomas was convicted of second-degree homicide and different fees and sentenced to 25 years to life in jail.
Investigators from the Conviction Review Unit reinterviewed witnesses and located that the detectives, significantly Reedy, had harassed Thomas after his earlier gun arrest and that they coached a witness to establish Thomas as one of many shooters within the Bercy killing as a result of they “were intent on arresting defendant”.
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Reedy, then retired, was later disciplined following an investigation by the Internal Affairs Bureau.
A phone call seeking comment on the reinvestigation into the 2004 shooting was left Thursday with a number listed for a Robert Reedy.
Gonzalez called Thomas’ conviction “fundamentally unfair” and added, “I’m decided to proceed doing this important work each time we uncover a questionable conviction in Brooklyn”.
An e mail in search of remark was despatched to an lawyer for Thomas.
Source: www.9news.com.au
