Suffolk Settles For $16M With Man Falsely Convicted Of Murder

HAUPPAUGE, NY — A $16 million settlement was reached between Suffolk County and Keith Bush, Executive Steve Bellone announced on Friday.

Bush's conviction for a 1975 North Bellport murder case was overturned by a judge following a federal lawsuit in one of the longest-running innocent-man cases in United States history — and the longest in New York history.

Bush, 64, served 33 years in prison in connection with the killing, and, until he was exonerated, remained under state-supervised release as a lifetime parolee and was required to register as a Level 3 sex offender. He was wrongfully convicted of stabbing and strangling 14-year-old Sherese Watson in North Bellport, ABC 7 reported.

The filing in support of vacating the conviction and dismissing the indictment against Bush came after a nine-month investigation and review by the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Bureau following many years of advocacy by Bush's attorney, Adele Bernard. The bureau was created by District Attorney Timothy Sini during his first year in office in 2018.

Bellone said the settlement with Bush reached on Thursday highlights the corruption of former Suffolk District Attorney Tom Spota, who was sentenced to five years in prison along with co-conspirator Chris McPartland.

Spota, 80 of Mount Sinai, who was a Republican-turned-Democrat, and McPartland, 55, of Northport, were found guilty of covering up an incident during which a man was beaten after he stole a duffel bag from a former police chief filled with sex toys and pornography.

"This case also highlights the culture of corruption that Tom Spota nurtured, cultivated, facilitated and led in a variety of ways over the course of a career that began in the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office in 1971."

Bush's 1975 arrest was four years after Spota joined the DA's Office as an assistant district attorney. Spota also served a stint as chief of the homicide bureau, according to Newsday.

Bellone said Gerard Sullivan, the prosecutor of Bush's case and a close friend of Spota's, failed to do his job, nor the "just and moral thing."

"[Sullivan] fails to turn over evidence to the defense that could have exonerated Keith Bush in 1975," Bellone said.

Sullivan died in 1993.

Even when technological advances found that the DNA at the crime scene was not Bush's, Spota, who was the district attorney at the time, fought hard to block any effort to overturn the conviction, Bellone said.

Bellone said he recognizes the monetary cost to the public as a result of the settlement, but that there's more to it.

"We don't get to see the devastation and despair of the people whose lives have been turned upside down," he said. "It's hard to calculate — maybe impossible — the full cost to communities — particularly communities of color that are disproportionately impacted from this kind of corruption."

Bellone acknowledged that Bush never stopped fighting to prove his innocence in a crime that he did not commit — even though it could have led to his release from prison "much earlier."

"His fate, his perseverance, he is responsible for overturning the verdict that put him in prison for 33 years of his life," Bellone said. "I spoke to Keith a couple of days ago for the first time. I will say publicly, what I told him privately. As county executive, on behalf of the people of this county, I am so sorry for what you unjustly endured here. And while I know this settlement and an apology from the county can not possibly make up for what you lost, even with that knowledge, it is important, right and it is just that we do this."