A man who spent nearly two decades in prison for a roughly $550 robbery was exonerated and freed on Monday, after prosecutors said they now agree he didn't commit the crime. "It cost me 20 years, but they said they corrected it now. So that's all that matters," said Kenneth Windley, 61, as he left a Brooklyn courthouse, at liberty for the first time since 2007, per the AP. A judge threw out his conviction and dismissed his case entirely, at the request of both prosecutors and Windley's lawyers. Prosecutors said new evidence—including confessions from two other men who were convicted of similar robberies—supported his long-standing claim of innocence.
"This case is really a cautionary tale of how things can seem one way, but, without careful analysis, not be what it purports to be," Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, a Democrat, said after shaking Windley's hand outside court. "Had we known what the evidence was, this case should have never happened," Gonzalez added, noting that he'd apologized privately to Windley. Windley was arrested in 2005 after buying a stove for his mother with a money order that turned out to be stolen. It had been snatched from Gerald Ross, 70, by two thieves who followed him home from a trip to a bank and a post office, prosecutors said in a report released Monday.
A paper trail soon led to Windley, who'd given his name, driver's license, and address when purchasing the stove at an appliance store. From the start, Windley said he had nothing to do with the robbery, noting he'd simply bought the money order at a discount from a couple of acquaintances who insisted it was valid but that they couldn't use it for a bureaucratic reason. "He was duped," one of Windley's lawyers said on Monday. Ross IDed Windley as one of the thieves, and a jury convicted Windley in 2007 of robbery. Due to prior felony convictions, he was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison; his appeals failed.
After his conviction, a friend and private investigators helped Windley flesh out the IDs of the men who'd sold him the money order and persuaded them to come forward about what had happened, according to the DA's report. In sworn statements and then in interviews, the two men said that they'd robbed Ross together and that Windley wasn't involved, according to the report. If the jury had known those men's IDs and robbery records, the info would likely have raised reasonable doubt about the charge against Windley, prosecutors concluded. Windley says he's not bitter about what he's been through. "I'm just going to move on from there," he noted.
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