‘I LIVE TO SEE HIM GET FREE’
Ma’s joy in ‘Scarcella slay’ retrial nix
A Brooklyn man is “ecstatic” to finally get his name cleared after almost 20 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit.
“It feels great!” newly exonerated Sundhe Moses, 42, said Friday as he strode out of Brooklyn Criminal Court, where a judge dismissed his old murder charges.
His smiling mom, 65-year-old Elaine Hill, said “I am happy” as she walked him out of court.
“I thank the Lord. Nothing hanging over my son’s head anymore and I live to see it,” she said. “I live to see him get free.” Moses was able to clear his record after two witnesses recanted their testimony against him — and after he convincingly described being beaten and threatened into confessing by scandalscarred ex-NYPD homicide Detective Louis Scarcella.
In January, Moses became the 13th person to have his murder conviction tossed in a Scarcellatainted case — but he remained officially under indictment for the murder, the 1995 shooting death of a 4-year-old Brownsville girl struck by a random bullet outside her housing project. Prosecutors reserved the option of re-doing the 1997 murder trial.
But on Friday, that final threat to Moses’ freedom lifted. Brooklyn prosecutors announced they would not seek to retry the case, and the charges were dismissed by Justice Dineen Riviezzo. “I’m ecstatic,” Moses said. But he said one thing would make him feel even better: hearing prosecutors acknowledge that they made errors in the case.
In tossing Moses’ conviction last month, Riviezzo had ruled that Moses might not have been found guilty had jurors known that Scarcella’s tactics would one day be questioned.
“I think that’s part of the healing process,” Moses said of getting an apology, adding, “Maybe I won’t get that.”
He was just 19 when he was arrested and spent 18 years in prison for the girl’s murder. He was paroled in 2013 and has worked since then to clear his name.
“Today is the first day that Sundhe Moses has not been an accused or convicted murderer, the first day in 22 years, 18 of those years spent in prison,” said the lawyer who won Moses’ exoneration, Ron Kuby.
“They certainly cannot prove him guilty at a fair trial where all the evidence comes in and a corrupt and disgraced detective is exposed for being corrupt and disgraced,” Kuby added.