Brooklyn man freed after spending 23 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit

Rosean Hargrave was freed yesterday after more than two decades in prison, after a judge ruled his conviction was based on faulty evidence and police corruption

A police mugshot of Rosean Hargrave, taken in 1992 when he was 15 years old. He would spend 23 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. (New York State Department of Correctional Services)

A man who spend 23 years in prison for the murder of a corrections officer has been freed after a judge ruled that his original conviction was based on faulty police work by a disgraced former detective.

Rosean Hargrave, who was sent to prison for murder in 1991 aged 17, had his conviction vacated on Tuesday at the age of 41, after Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice ShawnDya L Simpson found it was based on "false and misleading" evidence, the Washington Post reported.

Hargrave was arrested when he was 17 for the murder of Rolando Neischer, an off-duty corrections officer who was with his colleague Robert Crosson in a parked car in the Crown Heights area of Brooklyn when he was killed.

Crosson told the court at Hargrave's trial that two young black men with guns approached the car, and demanded Neischer and Crosson give it up. A fight broke out, and the two corrections officers were shot, with Neischer being killed.

Hargrave was found guilty, and was handed a 30 year to life sentence for murder.

Hargrave's friend, John Bunn, who was 14 at the time was also implicated in the murder, and was sent to prison for nine years. He was released in 2006 but was incarcerated again for violating his parole, eventually leaving prison in 2009.

An anti-police violence protest in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the area where discredited NYPD detective Louis Scarcella claimed Rosean Hargraves committed murder (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Judge Simpson cited the "corrupt practices" of New York Police Department (NYPD) detectives Louis Scarcella and Steven Chmil in her decision to set Hargrave free.

Scarcella has been lauded as a legend in the NYPD for the large number of murder convictions he secured in the 1980s and 1990s.

However, five of these convictions have already been overturned, and another 70 are under investigation by state prosecutors.

In her decision, the judge wrote: "There is a saying, when it is too good to be true, it usually is."

A New York Times investigation into Scarcella's record claimed that it showed "disturbing patterns", such as an alleged reliance on a single crack-addicted prostitute as an eyewitness in a number of murder prosecutions, and confessions from suspects who would later say they never told him anything.

In Hargrave's case, forensic evidence that convicted him was never tested, no fingerprint matches were found, and evidence had been destroyed by detectives "in bad faith", it was claimed.

At the Brooklyn Courthouse on Tuesday, there were jubilant scenes from Hargrave's family as the judge's decision was read out, with his sister shouting: "Thank you your honour, thank you God!"

John Bunn wept with happiness at the decision, and his lawyers have asked for his conviction to be vacated as well.

The US Federal Courthouse in Brooklyn, where there were emotional scenes on Tuesday as 41-year old Rosean Hargrave was freed after 23 year spent wrongfully in prison (JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images)

Judge Simpson did not actually find Hargrave innocent in her ruling, meaning he could potentially be convicted again. But prosecutors would need to find new evidence within 30 days, otherwise a potential new trial would have to rely on Scarcella's flawed evidence.

It is not yet known whether Hargrave will receive compensation from the state for the two decades he wrongfully spent in prison, but in January, two half-brothers were handed $17 million in compensation after spending a combined 60 years in prison, in a case linked to Scarcella.