Two Brooklyn friends who spent decades in prison for killing a French tourist in Times Square on New Year’s Day 1987 were finally acquitted Wednesday.
Eric Smokes, 56, and David Warren, 53, were arrested in connection with the fatal robbery of Jan Kass, 71, on West 52nd Street, which occurred shortly after the ball dropped on New Year’s Eve. At the time, I was still a teenager.
The pair, who grew up together in eastern New York, maintained their innocence but were convicted at trial in July 1987 based on eyewitness testimony from other teenagers.
Mr. Warren was released in 2007 and Mr. Smokes in 2011, according to Manhattan prosecutors.
While incarcerated, Smokes received a letter from the prosecution’s key witness in the case (who was 16 years old at the time of Cass’s murder) in which he admitted that he had lied to detectives by claiming that Smokes had said he had “caught him.” body” The New York Daily News reported.
In fact, the boy, who was a teenager at the time, only identified Smokes to keep police quiet about the robbery, which had nothing to do with him, the paper said.
Lawyers for Mr. Smokes and Mr. Warren also identified other flaws in the prosecution’s case.However, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office was under prosecutorial jurisdiction at the time. cyrus vance jr.refused to support their proposal to quash the convictions, even in light of this evidence (this proposal was first rejected in 2020).
“I’m angry, I’m disappointed, I’m hurt, I’m hurt because we’ve been dealing with the same problem for 33 years and we still haven’t been given justice,” said Warren, now 53. In response to a question from NBC News How he felt after the rejection of 2020.
Current Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg has ordered the case to be reopened as soon as he takes office in 2022.
Judge Stephen Antignani reversed the convictions of the men Wednesday in a hearing in Manhattan Supreme Court after Mr. Bragg’s office, along with lawyers for Mr. Smokes and Mr. Warren, asked for the cases to be thrown out. .
“Eric Smokes and David Warren lost decades of their lives because of their wrongful convictions,” Bragg said in a statement Wednesday. “I am inspired by Mr. Smokes and Mr. Warren’s unwavering advocacy and hope today’s decision will finally bring them some measure of comfort and justice.”
The prosecutor’s office’s postconviction division interviewed more than 20 witnesses and found several gaps in the case that Bragg’s office claimed were new. These include an alleged witness to the deadly robbery who claimed to have been with Mr Bragg at the time, but now claims Mr Bragg was not there. At the crime scene.
Mr. Bragg’s office said Wednesday that Mr. Smokes and Mr. Warren also had alibi for being in different parts of Times Square on the night of the crime, which several friends corroborated. According to the prosecutor’s office, witnesses who testified at the trial of the two men also gave contradictory accounts.
Lawyers for Smokes and Warren did not immediately comment Wednesday on whether they planned to file a lawsuit against the city in light of their overturned convictions.
