Three men convicted for the 1995 murder of a token booth clerk will be exonerated of all charges, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced Friday morning.
Following a reinvestigation into the case by the Conviction Review Unit, Gonzalez said his office found problematic identifications and false and contradictory confessions, among other “serious problems” with the prosecution’s case against the men — who were teenagers at the time of their convictions.
“The horrific murder of Harry Kaufman shocked our city and devastated a loving family, but the findings of an exhaustive, years long reinvestigation of this case leave us unable to stand by the convictions of those charged,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “Above all, my obligation is to do justice, and because of the serious problems with the evidence on which these convictions are based, we must move to vacate them and acknowledge the harm done to these men by this failure of our system.”
James Irons, Thomas Malik and Vincent Ellerbe — each sentenced to 25 years to life in prison — were accused of pouring gasoline into a Brooklyn token booth and setting it ablaze while Harry Kaufman was inside it. Malik and Irons have remained incarcerated while Ellerbe was paroled in late 2020, the Brooklyn DA's office said.
Kaufman suffered severe burns over 80% of his body and died from his injuries two weeks after the firebombing.
Over 25 years later, the Brooklyn DA’s office says it can no longer stand by the convictions.
“Among many reasons are the problematic circumstances of the identifications, the myriad factual contradictions between the confessions and the evidence recovered at the scene, and the material contradictions between the confessions themselves,” a press statement from the Brooklyn DA’s Office says.
The Brooklyn DA's office says the review found that the lead case detectives Stephen Chmil and Louis Scarcella fed "key details" to Irons who was 18-years-old at the time by showing him photographic evidence of the crime scene which included a rifle and "either describing or showing him" a photograph of the gasoline container, before Irons said anything "meaningful" about both items.
"These details were used to argue at trial that the confession was so detailed it could be relied on by the jury," the Brooklyn DA's office said in a statement.
The Detectives' Endowment Association said it "stands by the work” of Chmil and Scarcella.
"This solid case was also reviewed by police supervisors, district attorneys, and then a jury,” Paul DiGiacomo, the head of the DEA, said in a statement. "There were many people who moved the case forward. This is no more than high-priced ambulance chasing and a ridiculous attempt to smear our members’ names, reputations – and exonerate the horribly guilty in this disturbing case.
The defendants will appear in court Friday at 2:15 p.m. before Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Matthew D’Emic.
To date, the Conviction Review Unit has vacated 33 convictions since 2014. Currently, CRU has approximately 50 open investigations.