Moses has spent the better part of two decades in prison after being convicted of killing a 4-year-old girl in Brooklyn. But the case centered around a questionable confession taken by NYPD Detective Louis Scarcella, the man behind 50 convictions currently being examined as potentially wrongful.
Moses has spent the better part of two decades in prison after being convicted of killing a 4-year-old girl in Brooklyn.
Sundhe Moses was a free man for the first time in 18 years on Tuesday, as he walked out of an upstate prison determined to prove that a dirty detective railroaded him for the killing of a 4-year-old girl in Brooklyn.
Nearly 2 feet of snow covered the ground outside of the Bare Hill Correctional Facility near the Canadian border, but Moses had a sunny disposition as he left the lockup at 9:45 a.m.
Sundhe Moses gets emotional embrace from mom, Elaine, Tuesday at her Brooklyn home — after 18 years being locked away.
He was sent up the river as a 19-year-old. On Saturday, he’ll celebrate his 38th birthday.
“It was snowing, but it was like a great weight being lifted off my shoulders,” Moses told the Daily News. “I walked out and everything was new.”
Shamone Johnson was struck by a stray bullet at a playground in Brownsville in 1995. Sundhe Moses is said to have confessed to the crime.
Moses was released pursuant to the state Parole Board’s decision on Oct. 31 to grant him parole. It came after his lawyers documented serious flaws in the Brooklyn district attorney’s case and a key witness at trial admitted that cops coached him to lie.
Moses, who was convicted for the stray-bullet killing of Shamone Johnson at a playground in Brownsville in August 1995, says that tainted retired NYPD Detective Louis Scarcella beat him into confessing. Moses’ case is one of 50 trial convictions on which Scarcella worked that prosecutors have reopened after it was revealed the ex-lawman may have framed an innocent man in the murder of a Brooklyn rabbi in 1991.
Former NYPD Detective Louis Scarcella has been accused of using tough tactics to force Sundhe Moses to sign a confession. Fifty cases he got convictions on are being reexamined.
“Scarcella is a real dirty cop,” Moses said, ruing the day he copped to the shooting. “He beat me until I signed that confession . . . I am angry. My life is gone.”
Friends and family, including mother Elaine (2nd left) and father Charles (right), crowd around Moses as they celebrate his release from prison.
His closely cropped hair now flecked with gray, Moses was met outside the prison on Tuesday by Leah Busby, the young lawyer who uncovered exculpatory evidence that sprung him.
Sundhe Moses hugs delighted friends Shareka Jones (left) and Jahmeelah Hardy (right) at his mother's home in downtown Brooklyn on Tuesday morning.
Busby, 26, drove Moses seven hours south to his mother’s apartment and childhood home at the Ingersoll Houses in Fort Greene.
When Moses opened the front door, which was decorated in red-and-gold balloons, his 62-year-old mother raised her hands skyward in thanks to God.
'It's a happy day,' cried Sundhe Moses' mother, Elaine, raising her arms skyward.
Defense attorney Leah Busby uncovered the exculpatory evidence that led to Moses' release.
“My family kept me going,” Moses said of how he endured his time in prison. “I always knew they were fighting for me.”
Elaine Hill Moses has been waiting 18 years for her son to get out of jail.
Moses said how glad he was to be relieved of wearing “prison-green” clothing, and noted that he couldn’t wait to sit down to a soul food dinner. He said he hopes to one day work as a counselor with at-risk youth — but first his lawyers, including powerhouse attorney Ron Kuby, must get his 1997 conviction overturned. “It’s been a real long journey. We have a little way to go. I want justice served,” Moses said.
The Brooklyn district attorney’s office began investigating the casework of Scarcella after a judge in March overturned the conviction of David Ranta, 58, who was imprisoned for 20 years for the rabbi’s murder in 1991.
David Ranta, who was convicted of murder in the 1990 cold-blooded slaying of Rabbi Chaskel Werzberger in Brooklyn, was freed after investigation into NYPD Detective Louis Scarcella's evidence was called into question.
“Hopefully he’ll feel some of the suffering that my family has, and other prisoners have, felt,” Moses said.
While Moses celebrated, the former guardian of Shamone Johnson was enraged. “He had something to do with her murder,” Arlene Brown said of Moses. “My baby is still dead. She is not getting back on Earth. God will take care of him .”
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/18-years-hell-brooklyn-convict-set-free-article-1.1536830#ixzz2mcnywfLR
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