Innocent Brooklyn man freed after year in prison (1368 hits)
Ronald Bozeman was in good spirits according to the New York Post after being released from prison last week. Bozeman, 65, had spent over a year in jail for a crime he did not commit.
Bozeman was cleared of all charges related to a $9,000 robbery that occurred in downtown Brooklyn last year. Two witnesses had asserted to a grand jury that Bozeman was the gunman. Court records show these witnesses subsequently named another man, George Johnson, as the gunman during a second grand jury.
Prosecutors have moved forward in the case against Johnson. A spokesman for the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office said in a statement: “Based on a faulty ID procedure which we discovered and alerted the defense attorney to, we moved to have the charges against Bozeman dismissed.” Johnson has pleaded guilty to participation in the robbery.
Bozeman, who was held without bail and faced life in prison, was freed last Wednesday. “I feel relieved and not as bitter as I thought I would be,” he told the press. “The first thing I’m going to do is go get something to eat with my family.”
This mishap is being compared to the case of Jabbar Collins, an innocent man who went to prison for 15 years after being prosecuted by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. Collins is now suing for $150 million in damages amid accusations that Michael Vecchione, who prosecuted this case, threatened a witness and withheld evidence for over a decade that could have exonerated Collins. Vecchione is now a top aide to Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hyne
A man convicted of raping a woman in 1981 but cleared last month by DNA tests was freed from a Louisiana prison Friday after nearly 30 years behind bars.
Henry James was released from the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola a day after state District Judge Henry G. Sullivan vacated his conviction. Jefferson Parish prosecutors had joined James’ lawyers from The Innocence Project New Orleans in asking Sullivan to throw out the case and order James’ immediate release.
