Three cleared in 1995 killing of New York subway token clerk
NEW YORK — After decades in prison, three men were cleared Friday in one of the most horrifying crimes of New York’s violent 1990s — the killing of a clerk who was set on fire in a subway toll booth.
A judge dismissed the murder convictions of Vincent Ellerbe, James Irons and Thomas Malik after prosecutors said the case was built on falsehood-filled confessions, shaky witness identifications and other flawed evidence.
The three confessed to and were convicted of murdering token seller Harry Kaufman in 1995. The case resounded from New York to Washington to Hollywood, after parallels were drawn between the deadly arson and a scene in the movie Money Train, which had been released days earlier.
Malik and Irons, both 45, left court free for the first time in over a quarter-century. Ellerbe, 44, was paroled in 2020. “What happened to us can never be fixed,” Ellerbe told the court as he quietly described the ordeal of prison: “They break you, or they turn you into a monster.”
Malik, still absorbing what happened as he left court, said it was “definitely too little, too late, but everything takes time. I just was happy that I was able to stand strong.”
Irons said only that he felt “great.”
The men have long said they were coerced into falsely confessing in the case, which had a lead detective who later was repeatedly accused of forcing confessions and framing suspects. Prosecutors acknowledged that history on Friday but didn’t delve into how the detectives obtained the confessions in Kaufman’s case.
While there was at least one other potential suspect early in the investigation, it’s unclear whether police or prosecutors plan to — or can — pursue any further investigation decades later.
Kaufman was attacked on Nov. 26, 1995, while working an overnight shift on overtime to put away extra money for his son’s future college tuition. The attackers first tried to rob him, then squirted gasoline through the tollbooth coin slot and ignited the fuel with matches while he pleaded, “Don’t light it!” authorities said at the time. The booth exploded, and the 50-year-old Kaufman ran from it in flames. The married father died two weeks later.
Police scoured for suspects and eventually came to question Irons, getting a confession that he was acting as a lookout. He implicated Malik and Ellerbe as the men who had torched the tollbooth. In fact, Irons was home with his mother, around the corner from the subway station, when he heard the explosion and called 911 — a call that was never played for the jury at his trial, said his lawyer, David Shanies.