2 wrongly jailed men open eatery in Brooklyn
They went from serving time to serving customers in their own restaurant. Wrongfully convicted New Yorkers Derrick Hamilton and Shabaka Shakur met in prison while serving time for murders they didn’t commit — now they’re dishing out tuna tartare, crab cake and sirloins at their new restaurant and bar, Brownstone, in Downtown Brooklyn.
“I had somebody tell me they thought I would be in the restaurant business and I told them they were crazy,” Hamilton, who, like Shakur, is now exonerated, tells the Daily News.
He and Shakur became self-taught lawyers at Auburn Correctional Facility upstate where they worked tirelessly toward their release. Both were victims of disgraced former NYPD detective Louis Scarcella who allegedly coerced witnesses, fabricated evidence and concealed proof of defendants’ innocence.
Hamilton, now 51, was convicted of murder in 1991 after being charged with shooting a man named Nathaniel Cash in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He spent 20 years behind bars, and was released in 2011, before being exonerated last year. Shakur, now 52, spent 27 years in jail after a jury found him guilty in 1989 of a double homicide. He was also freed last year.
The men spent most of their lives fighting for survival in jail, relentlessly writing letters to lawyers and just about anyone who would read them. Despite the grave injustice they faced, the pair show no bitterness.
“I believe in people,” says Shakur. “I knew it was a matter of time before someone who really cared about the justice system would do something about it. It was a waiting game.”
Their restaurant is a nod to Brooklyn, the same borough they were falsely charged in. There’s a massive mural of the Brooklyn bridge leading into the dining room with the welcoming