A Harlem man who prosecutors let rot in a cell for decades despite evidence overwhelmingly suggesting he was innocent of murder returned to Manhattan Criminal Court for the first time since his 1995 sentencing to see his name cleared.
Now 58 years old, Harry Ruiz spent 25 years in prison after being convicted of the 1993 killing of Emmanuel Felix based on the testimony of a 13-year-old girl who repeatedly changed her story and whose mother was receiving cash payments in the thousands by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office under its longtime head Robert Morgenthau, the court heard Monday. Ruiz was released in 2019.
His lawyer, Ron Kuby, and Assistant District Attorneys Shalena Howard and Talia Gooding-Williams asked Justice Robert Mandelbaum to dismiss the decades-old indictment and conviction, citing a caseload of new evidence that was not disclosed at Ruiz’s November 1994 trial.
In addition to ignoring glaring inconsistencies in the sole eyewitness account, Kuby said prosecutors illegally hid from the defense benefits provided to the girl’s mom and buried evidence identifying the true killer provided by informants, who came forward years after the trial.
In a scathing decision he read from the bench, Mandelbaum granted the motion and said the newly discovered evidence went beyond insinuating that prosecutors had a weak case.
“The record powerfully suggests more — that Mr. Ruiz is, and always was, innocent of this crime,” the judge said.
Tuesday’s proceedings marked Ruiz’s first time returning to the 100 Centre St. courthouse in more than 31 years, when he adamantly proclaimed he was not the killer.
“I am innocent, and I will stand innocent for the rest of my life,” the then-24-year-old told Justice Harold Rothwax before the judge sent him away for 25 years, according to court records.
On Monday, Ruiz wept as his name was cleared and told Mandelbaum he only wished his late mother had lived to see it. He told the Daily News outside the courthouse he never considered lying about his guilt, even when it might have helped with the parole board, since his principles were all he had.
“I stood my ground from day one,” he said. “I said if I have to die in there innocent, then so be it. I’m not gonna give in.”
In a statement, District Attorney Alvin Bragg said prosecutors had interviewed dozens of witnesses and conducted an in-depth document review that significantly undermined the case presented at trial.
“While Mr. Ruiz has already served 25 years in prison, his name deserves to be permanently cleared,” the DA said.
Felix, a 23-year-old, small-time drug dealer, was shot dead in the early morning hours of Aug. 29, 2013, on Amsterdam Ave. between W. 135th and 136th Sts. Police from the 13th Precinct who responded to the scene of his killing initially couldn’t locate any eyewitnesses. But four days later, a 13-year-old came forward and pointed the finger at Ruiz.
Within days — and for the following 15 years — Morgenthau’s office quietly compensated the girl’s mother, a woman with severe drug addiction, whose home was a well-known hangout for parties and narcotics deals, Bragg’s reinvestigation found.
Morgenthau’s office would pay the mother a total of $17,000 in cash while she was in the throes of addiction, foot the bill for apartments and hotel rooms, and give her money for living expenses without requesting receipts, the court heard Monday.
Among other issues with the little girl’s trial testimony, the child had initially said she heard a shot and saw Ruiz running with a pistol, but later changed her account to claim she saw him pull the trigger. Nobody else at or near the scene, including the two friends the girl was with, plus bystanders who witnessed the gunman flee, pointed the finger at Ruiz. The young man had several alibi witnesses and was not tied to the killing by any physical evidence. Prosecutors hadn’t even offered a motive to connect him to the shooting.
Almost a decade into Ruiz’s sentence, in 2002, the prosecutor’s office was still assisting the witness, submitting a letter to a civil court in support of her efforts to change her name. The same year, the DA’s office heard from two cooperators in unrelated federal cases who insisted Ruiz was innocent and identified the real killer.
The first cooperator initially spoke up in 2000, several years into Ruiz’s sentence, telling the feds who prosecuted him for large-scale narcotics trafficking that he’d hired a person named “Shorty” — who was not Ruiz — to kill Felix.
The man, referred to in court docs as “JM,” stuck to his story when state prosecutors interviewed him two years later, but Morgenthau’s office declined to take action. The second cooperator, who faced charges in an unrelated case, backed up JM’s account in 2002, telling prosecutors that JM wanted Felix dead for stealing money from him on the job.
Ruiz caught a break in 2009, when Carlos Vasquez, a retired NYPD detective and sergeant, scrutinized his case and became convinced he’d been railroaded. Mike Race, a private investigator who began working on the case, managed to track down the witness’s husband, who told him that she wanted to “do the right thing” and come forward with the truth, but was scared of the DA’s office.
When Morgenthau’s office caught wind of the effort to clear Ruiz’s name, Race got a cease and desist letter from former Manhattan prosecutor Cynthia Sittnick and was threatened with prosecution if he didn’t back off.
Kuby on Monday condemned the culture at the DA’s office under its former leadership.
“Under the old regime, the way they avoided having to account for wrongful convictions is they said there weren’t any, and they would double and triple down on their misconduct, and that’s what they did in this case,” the civil rights attorney said.
Mandelbaum on Monday said that the prosecutors who had handled the case “may well” have buried evidence that would have cleared Ruiz’s name. He said he was especially troubled that the trial prosecutor, former Assistant District Attorney Helen Sturm, had refused to “voluntarily discuss the case” with Bragg’s office in its reinvestigation.
“To this court, that speaks volumes,” Mandelbaum said.
The Daily News could not reach Sturm or Sittnick for comment.
The judge said it was a bedrock principle of the U.S. criminal justice system that it is better for 10 guilty persons to go free than for one innocent to be convicted, saying there was no graver injustice.
“Regrettably, nothing this court can do suffices to right the grievous wrong that has occurred here,” Mandelbaum said. “Mr. Ruiz will never get back the 25 long years of his imprisonment. The lost time spent with his family can never be restored. No apology, no level of regret for what the defendant has suffered can even begin to rectify it.”
“All this court is empowered to do is to grant this motion. I wish there were more. Harry Ruiz should not have been convicted. That tragic injustice ends today.”