A man who had to spend nearly two decades incarcerated for a $550 robbery he didn’t commit has finally been freed.
Prosecutors now say Kenneth Windley should never have been found guilty of charges connected to the robbery of an elderly man in 2005.
According to a release from the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, the actual robbery suspects stole two unsigned money orders — one for $542, the other for $9 — from 70-year-old Gerald Ross in April 2005 as he was walking home after finishing up errands at the bank and post office.
Windley, who was in his 40s at the time, said he ran into the two suspects as he was leaving his girlfriend’s house. They offered to sell him the larger money order they claimed they no longer needed.
Windley then visited an appliance store and used the money order to buy a stove for his mother.
Ross identified Windley as the robbery suspect from a photo array and then a live lineup, and authorities charged Windley with robbery and larceny.
During his 2007 trial, Windley testified that he didn’t know the money order was stolen and that he knew both men, but didn’t know their real names.
“He was duped,” said one of Windley’s lawyers, David Shanies, per The Associated Press.
Windley was convicted and, because of prior felony convictions, sentenced to 20 years in prison. He maintained his innocence throughout his incarceration and filed several appeals, but they failed.
Both suspects later confessed in sworn statements and interviews with the DA’s office that Windley had nothing to do with the robbery. Their accounts were also substantiated by their recorded prison phone calls and emails.
They’re currently serving time for a string of robberies in 2005 and 2006. Their thefts always involved men in their 60s and older who were walking home from banks and check-cashing offices.
Windley was already up for parole in 2027, but a judge decided to dismiss his case at the request of prosecutors and Windley’s defense attorneys.
“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, now 61, said as he left a Brooklyn courthouse on March 15.
Prosecutors said that had the suspects’ real identities and criminal rap sheets been available during the original investigation, Windley would have never been convicted.
“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,” said Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez.
Windley’s attorneys are considering filing a civil lawsuit, citing “process failures” in the original case, according to News12.
After his release, Windley said, “A lot of things look different outside, but I’ll adapt.”
“It feels great. It feels real great,” he said.
