Three Black Men Unjustly Prosecuted for 96 NY Murders Released from Prison

Photo: GoFundMe

From left: George Bell, Gary Johnson and Rohan Bolt, along with their families.

After spending decades behind bars for a double murder in New York City in 1996, three [Black] men will walk free Friday after having their wrongful convictions vacated.

George Bell, Rohan Bolt and Gary Johnson were convicted in the Dec. 21, 1996 murders of Ira “Mike” Epstein and NYPD Police Officer Charles Davis in the course of robbing Epstein’s check cashing business. Davis lost his life in his efforts to protect Epstein while working off-duty as security for Epstein’s business.

After an investigation spanning 11 months, in which more than 30 witnesses were interviewed, pertaining to these decades-old convictions, the District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) determined that prosecutors at the time of the trial inadvertently failed to disclose records that were favorable to the defense, including documents indicating that a member of the "Speedstick" gang implicated himself and other gang members in the robbery and killings as well as mental health records of an alleged accomplice who implicated the accused and testified against two of the men at their trials.

Read rest of story here.

Editor's Note: This case is yet another egregious example of the racism that is endemic in the so-called American "justice" system. Are we really to believe these documents, that pointed to the innocence of these three Black men, were really just "inadvertently failed to be disclose[d]?" How dumb do they think we are?

What we see here is the obvious typical suppression tactics prosecutors engage in to convict Black people--who they know are innocent.

Tomorrow we will publish more on this outrage...