Three men are free after Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz moved Thursday to vacate their wrongful convictions.

For Reginald Cameron and Armond Mcloud, the district attorney says their confessions in a 1994 deadly shooting were unreliable because they were elicited by a detective connected with two other false confession cases.

What You Need To Know

  • For Reginald Cameron and Armond Mcloud, the district attorney says their confessions in a 1994 deadly shooting were unreliable because they were elicited by a detective connected with two other false confession cases

  • In Earl Walter’s case, fingerprint evidence implicates other men are responsible for the abductions and robberies of two women in 1992

  • The district attorney launched a "conviction integrity unit" in 2020. Since then, the office says it vacated more than 100 convictions, including the three motions filed Thursday

One of those being the “Central Park Five” case in 1989.

“The public gets to see that I’m not the person I’ve painted out to be for so long,” said Cameron.

The district attorney also said their confessions did not match the facts of the crime and didn’t accurately describe the victim.  

McCloud was released in January after 28 years in prison and Cameron spent eight years behind bars before he was released on parole in 2003.

“I was handcuffed to a refrigerator handle. They said it was 13 hours, but it felt like 13 days or them just torturing, torturing you, playing mind games with you and you start to believe what they’re saying to you is true,” said Cameron.

In Earl Walter’s case, fingerprint evidence implicates other men are responsible for the abductions and robberies of two women in 1992.,

The district attorney says without counsel, Walters underwent 16 hours of interrogation and made statements implicating himself with the crime.

He served 20 years in prison before being released on parole in 2013.

“That officer did not follow the rules and didn’t do what he was supposed to do, and if he did what he was supposed to do back then, none of this would have happened,” said Walters.

“Fairness in the criminal justice system means we must re-evaluate cases when credible new evidence of actual innocence or wrongful conviction emerges. Those who have served prison time for crimes they demonstrably did not commit deserve to have the slate wiped clean,” Katz said.

While both say they are happy their innocence has been proven, it doesn’t take a compenstate for the time lost.

“This scar on my face is not going to change. The death of the people I can’t see anymore it’s not going to bring those moments back, so yeah they did not right a wrong they admitted a wrong,” said Cameron.

“You try to just make good memories for the time that I have that god has given and make enough good enough memories to push the bad ones out,” said Walters.

The district attorney launched a “conviction integrity unit” in 2020.

Since then, the office says it vacated more than 100 convictions, including the three motions filed Thursday.