Man freed after false photo led to murder conviction
Sheldon Thomas exits court and is released after a judge overturned his murder conviction on Thursday March 9, 2023. (Screenshot from CBS New York)
A man who has served nearly two decades in prison for a murder he did not commit has been released after a judge agreed the case was flawed due to a botched identification.
Shelton Thomas, 35, was released on Thursday. Before leaving the Brooklyn courtroom, he addressed the court.
“Just as I’ve made mistakes in my life, people have forgiven me,” he said on footage from CBS New York. “And I will do the same.”
Thomas received a life sentence of 25 years for second-degree murder and attempted murder in a car shootout on Christmas Eve 2004 in Brooklyn. The shooting killed 14-year-old Anderson Bercy and wounded Kadeem Drummond. Two others were also arrested – one man had the charges dropped before trial and the second man was acquitted.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez’s Conviction Review Unit (CRU) reinvestigated the case. He said in a statement Thursday that police arrested Thomas after a witness identified another man with the same name. He said in a press release the mistake was concealed and then explained in court.
“Investigators wanted to arrest the defendant and used the flawed identification process as an excuse,” he said in a statement after asking the judge to vacate Thomas’s conviction. “He was further deprived of his due process rights as prosecutors continued, even after the erroneous identification came to light, rendering his conviction fundamentally unfair.”
The Conviction Review Unit concluded that the police investigation was inadequate and resulted in the wrongful arrest of Thomas, even after police learned he was not the man identified by the original eyewitness.
It found that the court had incorrectly determined a probable cause for his arrest based on false testimony given by a detective, and that prosecutors may have failed to disclose false police testimony to the court.
The new investigation found serious problems with the credibility of this witness and defense attorney, compounding errors in “myriad ways”. The Conviction Review Unit also concluded that the detectives had arranged for the witnesses to identify Thomas.
“It also concluded that — despite claims by police, prosecutors, the trial judge and an appellate panel — the Thomas in the series of photographs and the defendant do not look the same,” the prosecutor said. “The same witness who identified the other Thomas in the line also identified the defendant Thomas in a lineup – effectively identifying two different individuals as the perpetrators.”
At a pre-trial hearing in June 2006, the false photo emerged.
“Detective Robert Reedy admitted under cross-examination that he gave false testimony and that the defendant was in fact out of line,” Gonzalez said.
The prosecutor said Reedy, who has since retired, was disciplined after an investigation into internal affairs.
“The errors have undermined the integrity of the entire trial and the resulting conviction of the defendant. Because the evidence was and is flawed, the case cannot be retried and the CRU recommended that the underlying charges be dismissed.”
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