Three Black men were cleared of their murder convictions on Friday, July 15, after serving decades in prison for one of the most heinous crimes of New York’s violent 1990s: the murder of a clerk who was set on fire in a subway toll booth.
According to AP News, A judge overturned the murder convictions of Vincent Ellerbe, James Irons, and Thomas Malik after prosecutors claimed that the case was built on false confessions, shaky witness identifications, and other flawed evidence.
In 1995, the three confessed to and were convicted of the murder of token seller Harry Kaufman. The case reverberated from New York to Washington to Hollywood, with parallels drawn between the deadly arson and a scene from the film “Money Train,” which was released four days prior to the attack.
Malik and Irons, both 45, for the first time in over a quarter-century, left court free. Ellerbe, 44, was granted parole in 2020.
“What happened to us can never be fixed,” Ellerbe said quietly in court as he described his ordeal in prison. “They break you or they turn you into a monster.”
Irons exiting the court, said only that he felt “great.” The dismissal, according to Malik, was “definitely too little, too late, but everything takes time.”
“I just was happy that I was able to stand strong to endure this journey,” Malik continued. “But it was a rough journey.”
The men have long stated that they were forced to falsely confess in the case, which involved detectives who were later accused of forcing confessions and framing suspects.
In fact, Irons was at home with his mother, just around the corner from the subway station, when he heard the explosion and dialed 91, a call that, according to his lawyer, David Shanies, was never played for jurors.
While there were other potential suspects early in the investigation, it’s unclear whether police or prosecutors intend to or are able to pursue any additional investigation decades later.
Kaufman was assaulted on November 26, 1995, while working an overnight shift on overtime to make some extra money for his son’s future college tuition. Authorities said at the time that the attackers tried to rob him first, then sprayed gasoline through the tollbooth coin slot and ignited the fuel with matches.
The booth blew up, and the 50-year-old Kaufman fled in flames. Two weeks later, the married father died.
The attack took on a resemblance to a scene from the film “Money Train,” prompting then-Senate Majority Leader and Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole to call for a boycott of the film. Authorities have given conflicting signals over the years about whether they believe the film inspired the murder.
Police eventually came to question Irons, who admitted to acting as a lookout. He named Malik and Ellerbe as the perpetrators of the tollbooth fire.
The men maintained that they were coerced into making false confessions, with Malik saying Detective Louis Scarcella screamed at him and slammed his head against a locker. Scarcella testified that he cursed, pounded a table, and tried to scare Malik, then 18, but did not beat him.
Prosecutors stated that their investigation discovered that Scarcella and his partner fed crime scene details to Irons and Malik while dismissing inconsistencies in their confessions.
For example, Irons claimed to have seen his alleged accomplices jump into a getaway car, despite the fact that it was parked a block away and around a corner. Ellerbe described four assailants and claimed to have sprayed gasoline on the tollbooth’s exterior when it was actually poured into the coin slot. Malik’s description of the car differed from that of a witness.
The same witness’ identification of Malik was also problematic, prosecutors said because she had previously pointed to someone else, a man an informant had named separately.
“More than 25 years later we do not have any confidence in the integrity of those convictions,” Assistant District Attorney Lori Glachman told the court.
Scarcella was a star Brooklyn homicide detective in a city plagued by crime at the time. Killings in the city peaked at more than 2,200 in 1990, compared to 488 last year and a low of 295 in 2018.
However, after questions about Scarcella’s tactics arose, the Brooklyn district attorney’s office began reviewing scores of cases he had worked on in 2013. Scarcella, who retired in 2000, has maintained his innocence. While more than a dozen of his convictions have been overturned, prosecutors have stood by scores more.
The re-examination of old convictions by Brooklyn prosecutors is widely regarded as one of the most ambitious of its kind.
“This is no longer about one or two bad apples. This is about a systemic rot” at a time when panic about public safety made too many police, prosecutors and judges comfortable not asking enough questions,” said Ellerbe and Malik’s lawyer, Ronald Kuby.
James Irons, center, holds his grand nephew Michael, 5, as he leaves Brooklyn Supreme Court after his exoneration, Friday July 15, 2022, in New York. 
Attorney Ron Kuby, left, comforts his client Thomas Malik, right, as he waits for the start of his exoneration hearing at Brooklyn Supreme Court 
Vincent Ellerbe, left, and Thomas Malik, right, talk with press following their exoneration hearing at Brooklyn Supreme Court, Friday July 15, 2022 
Vincent Ellerbe, left, approaches as Thomas Malik, right, embraces his lawyer Ron Kuby, center, following an exoneration hearing at Brooklyn Supreme Court, Friday July 15, 2022, in New York.
“People, responsible people, who really did know better … all should have done something,” he said.
Ellerbe, a chef now, is the father of a 26-year-old daughter he never got to see grow up. Malik, still shocked that the case was finally over, said that he was on his way to see his mother, who had recently undergone surgery.
How should we proceed? “We’ll take it one day at a time,” he said.
“Just keep going,” Ellerbe said. “You can’t turn around.”