Wrongly jailed in 1990 killing, man set free
NEW YORK— Relatives of David Ranta rejoiced in a Brooklyn courthouse Thursday as Ranta — convicted more than two decades ago in the cold-blooded slaying of a prominent rabbi — was released after prosecutors conceded his murder case was fatally flawed.
But the celebration was tempered by a prosecutor’s answer when asked who the killer was.
“That’s a good question,” assistant district attorney John O’Mara, who heads the district attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit, said after a judge released Ranta. “It may have been this defendant, it may not have been this defendant.”
With at least one other potential suspect dead, memories of witnesses faded and a glaring absence of police paperwork on the case, authorities say any opportunity for a clear-cut resolution has slipped away. A judge, however, told Ranta on Thursday that he was at least owed an apology for a misguided prosecution.
“To say I’m sorry for what you’ve endured would be an understatement. . . . But I say it anyway,” said Judge Miriam Cyrulnik.
The case dated to Feb. 8, 1990, when a gunman botched an attempt to rob a diamond courier. After the courier escaped unharmed, the man approached the car of Rabbi Chaskel Werzberger, — a leader of the Satmar Hasidic community — shot him in the forehead, pulled him out of the vehicle and drove away in it.