Subway attack convictions disavowed
NEW YORK — Prosecutors are disavowing the convictions of three men who spent decades in prison for 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 tollbooth.
Vincent Ellerbe, James Irons and Thomas Malik 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,” released four days before the attack.
But Brooklyn prosecutors now plan to join defense lawyers in asking a judge Friday to dismiss all three men’s convictions.
“The findings of an exhaustive, years-long reinvestigation of this case leave us unable to stand by the convictions,” Brooklyn Dist. Atty. Eric Gonzalez said in a release. He cited “serious problems with the evidence on which these convictions are based” and acknowledged “the harm done to these men by this failure of our system.”
The confessions conflicted with evidence at the scene and with one another, and witness identifications were problematic, prosecutors say. Some of the men have long said they were coerced into falsely confessing in the case, which involved a lead detective who later was accused of forcing confessions and framing suspects.
Ellerbe, 44, was paroled in 2020, but Malik and Irons, both 45, have remained in prison.
Malik was still absorbing the news Friday, lawyer Ronald Kuby said. “Yesterday was the first day that he actually allowed himself to believe that he’s going to be free,” said Kuby, who also represents Ellerbe and said the latter is “extraordinarily happy” to see his conviction thrown out.
Kaufman was working at a Brooklyn subway station on Nov. 26, 1995, when attackers tried to rob him, then squirted gasoline into the booth and ignited it with matches while he pleaded, “Don’t light it!” authorities said at the time. The booth exploded, and Kaufman ran from it in flames. Kaufman, 50, who had a wife and children, died of his injuries two weeks later.
Police questioned Irons, getting a confession that he was acting as a lookout. He implicated Malik and Ellerbe as the men who had torched the tollbooth.
Ellerbe and Malik maintained that they had been coerced into false confessions, with Malik saying that Det. Louis Scarcella had screamed at him and slammed his head into a locker. Scarcella testified that he cursed and tried to scare Malik, then 18, but didn’t beat him.
After questions arose about Scarcella’s tactics, the Brooklyn D.A.’s office began in 2013 to review scores of cases that he had worked.
Scarcella, who retired in 2000, denied any wrongdoing. While more than a dozen convictions in his cases were overturned, prosecutors stood by scores of others.