Brooklyn Man Freed After Nearly 20 Years In Prison

BROOKLYN, NY— Kenneth Windley, 61, left a Brooklyn courthouse Monday, free for the first time since 2007, after prosecutors agreed he did not commit a $550 robbery nearly two decades ago.

A judge threw out Windley’s conviction and dismissed the case at the request of both prosecutors and his lawyers. Prosecutors said new evidence, including confessions from two other men convicted of similar robberies, supported Windley’s long-standing claims of innocence.

“This case is really a cautionary tale of how things can seem one way but, without careful analysis, not be what it purports to be,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said. “Had we known what the evidence was, this case should have never happened.”

Windley was arrested in 2005 after buying a stove for his mother with a money order later found to be stolen.

The money order had been taken from 70-year-old Gerald Ross by two men who followed him home from a bank and post office, prosecutors said.

Ross identified Windley from a photo array and a live lineup, more than six weeks after the robbery. Windley testified at his 2007 trial that he bought the $542.77 money order from acquaintances who assured him it was valid.

The jury convicted him of robbery, and he was sentenced to 20 years to life because of prior felony convictions.

“He was duped,” Windley’s lawyer, David Shanies, told the court Monday.

After his arrest, Windley provided prosecutors with information about the men who sold him the money order. Over the years, he and private investigators traced them, ultimately persuading the two men to admit their roles in the robbery.

Both men, identified only as “Suspect 1” and “Suspect 2,” are serving prison time for other robberies committed in Brooklyn in 2005 and 2006, according to the D.A.’s office.

Prosecutors concluded that the jury would likely have had reasonable doubt if it had known the true culprits’ identities and criminal records. No new charges have been filed in the case; the statute of limitations has expired, and Ross has since died.

Windley plans to celebrate with his family but says he holds no bitterness over the decades spent behind bars.

“It cost me 20 years, but they said they corrected it now. So that’s all that matters. So I’m good with that,” Windley said. “I’m just going to move on from there,” he said.