Sheldon Thomas- How He Was Unjustly Sent To Prison For Nearly 20 years

On Christmas Eve of 2004, a 14-year-old boy was shot and killed in Brooklyn, New York City.

An eyewitness came forward to identify the killer from a photo array. The witness identified a man with the name Sheldon Thomas as the killer, but the detectives went to the wrong Thomas' house to arrest him, even though his picture wasn't even in the array.

Image: The Sheldon Thomas in the photo array who was not arrested(top left), and the wrongfully convicted Sheldon Thomas.

When the botched identification came out in court at the time, the presiding judge said there was still probable cause for the arrest and that the photo had enough of a resemblance. Thomas, who was just 17 years old, was charged with second degree murder and sent to prison.

Nearly 20 years later, the Brooklyn District Attorney's Conviction Review Unit said that Thomas' conviction was wrong, leading to his conviction being overturned and his indictment being vacated last week, on Thursday, March 9th.

Sheldon Thomas- How He Was Unjustly Sent To Prison For Nearly 20 years

A man from Brooklyn who was wrongly convicted of a 2004 murder was let out of jail nearly 20 years after he was wrongly identified in a photo array.

Inside Story

Sheldon Thomas, who is now 35, and Dalton Walters, who was 24 at the time, were both from East Flatbush. They were both arrested and found guilty of killing 14-year-old Anderson Bercy in Brooklyn on Christmas Eve 2004.

A 2004 New York Times article said that Bercy was shot while walking home on Snyder Avenue around 11 p.m. on Christmas Eve. His 15-year-old friend Kadeem Drummond was also hit in the shoulder. Two people from a gang in a white car shot and killed Bercy.

Thomas, after spending close to two decades in prison

Two days prior, Walters went up to both Bercy and Drummond. He got into an argument with Drummond, but Bercy stopped him. The DA's report said Walters then told the two that they were messing with the wrong people and that they should "watch themselves."

Nearly 20 years later, the Brooklyn District Attorney's Conviction Review Unit said that Thomas' conviction was wrong because another 17-year-old with the same name had actually been involved in the murder.

At the time, the case detective had asked for the defendant's previous arrest to be unsealed so that his photo could be used in the array. From police databases, they also got a picture of a different Sheldon Thomas.

Sheldon Thomas, right, was arrested for a murder in 2004, after police showed a photo of a different Sheldon Thomas, left, to a witness to identify. *Image Credit: Brooklyn District Attorney's Office*

When shown to a witness, Aliyah Charles, identified the wrong Thomas with '90 percent certainty,' the DA said. Then, the detectives went to the wrong Thomas' house to arrest him, even though his picture wasn't even in the array.

The witness later identified Thomas in a lineup - successfully identifying two separate men as the same person.

During a pre-trial hearing in June 2006, Detective Robert Reedy admitted under cross-examination that the defendant's photo had not been in the lineup. This showed that the wrong photo ID had been used.

The judge nonetheless found that there was probable cause to arrest Thomas based on 'verified information from unknown callers' and the fact that he supposedly resembled the other Thomas, investigators said.

Thomas walks free after being incarcerated for close to two decades

Thomas was found guilty of second-degree murder and other crimes and given a prison sentence of anywhere from 25 years to life.

Investigators from the Conviction Review Unit re-interviewed witnesses and found that the detectives had harassed Thomas after his earlier gun arrest. They also coached a witness to say that Thomas was one of the shooters in the Bercy killing because they "wanted to arrest the defendant."

Thomas was supposed to go to court Thursday(9th March ) in front of Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Matthew J. D'Emic. In its report, the DA's office said that the conviction should be thrown out and the case shouldn't be tried again because the evidence was bad.

The Brooklyn DA's office said that the mistaken identification was a "mistake that was first hidden and then explained away during the proceedings" because "detectives were determined to arrest the defendant and used the faulty identification procedure as a pretext."

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez

He was also denied his right to due process when the prosecution kept going even after the wrong identification was found. This made his conviction very unfair. DA Eric Gonzalez said in a statement.

The case was looked at again by the Conviction Review Unit of the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office, led by Eric Gonzalez. When he met with Thomas in court, Gonzalez said he was sorry.

Thomas said he forgives the NYPD detective, witnesses, and others who helped put him in jail for the murder of 14-year-old Anderson Bercy, whose real killer is still unknown.

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