NY DAILY NEWS: Two NYC men railroaded by corrupt cops, lying witnesses have sentences vacated after decades in prison

By MOLLY CRANE-NEWMAN | mcranenewman@nydailynews.com | New York Daily News

November 27, 2023 at 11:10 p.m.

Two men who spent a combined half-century in prison for murder had their names cleared in Manhattan on Monday, but only one walked free.

At back-to-back hearings, District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office asked judges to vacate the decades-old convictions of Wayne Gardine and Jabar Walker after separate reinvestigations with The Legal Aid Society and the Innocence Project revealed authorities built their cases on shady police work and lying witnesses.

Both men were convicted in separate homicide cases based on investigations by Manhattan’s then-notoriously corrupt 30th Precinct nicknamed the “Dirty 30.” Nearly three dozen of the Harlem stationhouse cops were arrested in the 1990s for corruption and other crimes.

In Walker’s case, Manhattan prosecutors under former DA Bob Morgenthau offered him nine years to plead guilty to Ismael De La Cruz and William Santana Guzman’s 1995 killings as they sat in a car on 148th St. After he declined the deal — citing his innocence — and lost at trial in 1998, a judge gave him 50 years.

“I made it,” Walker, 51, quietly said in court Monday, wiping a tear from his eye, as state Supreme Court Judge Miriam Best vacated his conviction.

The 49-year-old Gardine has been in custody since he was 20 for the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Robert Mickens in 1994. He was sitting in a federal detention facility in New Jersey on Monday when Bragg’s office asked state Supreme Court Judge Kathryn Paek to approve a joint motion with Legal Aid, who initiated the reinvestigation of his case, to clear his name.

“He [was] not able to be there because [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] has refused to let him out,” Fox told the Daily News. “It’s a horrible position to put someone in who has been wrongfully convicted. He spent nearly 30 years behind bars, and he’s still not free. It’s a very bittersweet ending to this story.”

Gardine has languished in federal custody awaiting deportation to Jamaica, where he left at 13, since completing his prison sentence last year, Fox said.

In a statement provided by his attorneys, Gardine thanked them and DA Bragg for re-examining his case and “their respect for the truth.”

“I also want to thank my mom for being there all these years, and I want to thank myself for never giving up,” Gardine said. “I’m happy that the justice system finally worked.”

Gardine, who left behind a baby boy when he went away, has for decades maintained his innocence, including each of the four times the parole board turned him down.

“Well, I cried. I just can’t explain in words. I don’t know what to say,” Gardine’s mother, Grace Davis, said. “So long — 30 years, you know? I’ve been through a lot of sickness and depression, depressed because I know he’s innocent.”

Davis implored federal immigration officials to release her son from custody immediately. Fox said Gardine never had an opportunity to apply for legal status and hopes ICE will release him so he can get his life back on track.

An agency spokesperson did not comment by press time nor confirm if ICE will release Gardine.

Gardine’s lawyers said his 1996 conviction resulted from the eyewitness accounts of two teenagers who dealt drugs and were nearby when Mickens was gunned down.

The older one’s testimony against Gardine was found to be unreliable in the reinvestigation. The younger teen, who was 14 at the time, told Legal Aid and Bragg’s office that both teens had pinned the murder on Gardine so their boss, who was friends with Mickens, wouldn’t make them retaliate.

The lead detective on Gardine’s case, who no longer stands by his work on it, told investigators he was new to the 30th Precinct and was discouraged by his supervisor — Willie Parson, who was later convicted of drug dealing — from pursuing another suspect or following up on Gardine’s alibi.

“Wayne Gardine was just 22 years old when he was sentenced to decades in prison following a trial that we now believe relied on an unreliable witness and testimony — losing years of freedom due to an unjust conviction,” Bragg said.

Walker waited 27 years to clear his name — and another three hours to walk out of the courtroom a free man on Monday, with Judge Best noting the paperwork would “take a while.”

“Mr. Walker has paid a heavy price for insisting on his innocence [since] the day his prosecution began,” Walker’s lawyer, Vanessa Potkin, said inside the courtroom, noting he spent decades in prison law libraries fighting his conviction.

Investigators with the Innocence Project and Bragg’s office interviewed more than 30 people when reexamining Walker’s case. The probe found he received ineffective legal representation, shoddy work by police and prosecutors, and that not a single eyewitness at trial could be relied on.

The day he was sentenced, a key witness sought to recant his testimony, saying he’d been pressured to blame Walker for the shootings of 32-year-old William Santana and Ismael De La Cruz, 30, as they sat in a parked car on W. 148th St. near Broadway. He remained adamant Walker was innocent in 2021 when he spoke with investigators taking a fresh look at the case.

“Not only was the case against Jabar Walker built upon unreliable and recanted testimony, he did not have the benefit of an effective defense attorney – one of the constitutional bedrocks of our justice system,” Bragg said.

Along with the recanted testimony, Potkin said the joint investigation “revealed a myriad of ways where the system failed Mr. Walker and uncovered pervasive misconduct that led to his wrongful conviction and new evidence of what he has stated all along — he is innocent.”

Walker’s doting mother and father, Patrice and Terry Walker, were among dozens of his loved ones who packed into the courtroom Monday to see his conviction vacated. His daughter, Alexis, 27, who was less than a year old when he was convicted, was there too.

After the hearing, they waited for hours in the hallway, ready to tearfully embrace him when he officially walked out dancing and smiling around 2 p.m.

Terry Walker, 71, told The News he had no choice but to keep the faith over the decades that his son would see his name cleared.

“We had to believe, you know? That’s really all we had,” he said. “We knew our boy was innocent.”

The elder Walker said he didn’t believe there was any way to rectify the horrific wrongs his son experienced in New York’s justice system.

“I don’t believe so. I really don’t believe so. We have to accept what happened and move on with our lives,” Terry Walker said.

“He missed a lifetime. He missed his daughter growing up. He missed us getting older, things that we could have done together. He missed all of that.”

An elated Jabar Walker gives his mother, Patrice Walker, a kiss outside Manhattan Supreme Court on Monday. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News)

In the final moments of decades painfully spent waiting for her son to come home, Walker’s mother, Patrice Walker, 69, told The News she remembered when state Supreme Court Judge Edwin Torres announced his sentence inside the same courthouse at 111 Centre St. like it was yesterday.

“I had to leave the court, I almost fainted,” she said, recalling how she felt overcome with guilt for supporting his decision to reject the plea deal when his older brother had told him to take it.

Walker’s parents were able to visit him about once a month in recent years and more often when he was closer to them at Sing Sing. They plan to move back to the city from Poughkeepsie to be closer to him.

“I’m feeling so good. My stomach is jumping like crazy. I can’t stop it, but to hold him out in the hall, then I will know he’s home to stay,” Patrice said as she waited for corrections and court officials to finish his paperwork.

“I really wanted to cry,” she said of the moment Best cleared his name.

“I really wanted to say, ‘I told you so!’” Terry added.

Hours later, outside the courthouse with his arms wrapped around his mom, Walker said he had never lost hope and his only plans were to spend time with his family. His daughter said she’d catch him up on how to use a cell phone.