Prosecutors hid proof of innocence in NYC shooting case, says man exonerated after 24 years
Jonathan Fleming had a strong alibi as to his whereabouts at the time of a fatal 1989 shooting. When the New York City crime was being committed, he was vacationing in Florida. And he had a time-stamped paid hotel telephone bill to support his story.
But when he turned over the document, city police and Brooklyn prosecutors withheld it and said they’d never had it, alleges Fleming in a civil rights lawsuit he filed Tuesday in Brooklyn Supreme Court. Likewise, he alleges, a letter from Orlando police stating that an investigation showed Fleming had been at Disney World at the time of the crime also was claimed by the Kings County DA’s office not to exist.
Convicted of the murder in 1990, Fleming spent almost 25 years in prison before he was exonerated and released last year, based on an investigation opened in 2013 by a newly formed conviction integrity unit. He is seeking both compensatory and punitive damages in his civil rights suit against the city and the DA’s office, according to Courthouse News.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Despite out-of-state vacation alibi, man spent nearly 25 years in prison for murder he didn’t commit”
New York Post: “Ex-Brooklyn DA sued for failing to free wrongly imprisoned man”
