A Brooklyn judge set Kenneth Windley free on Monday, tossing out his 2007 robbery conviction and dismissing the case entirely after prosecutors said they now agree he did not commit the crime for which he spent nearly two decades in prison.
Windley, 61, left a Brooklyn courthouse at liberty for the first time since 2007. “It cost me 20 years, but they said they corrected it now. So that’s all that matters. So I’m good with that,” he said after the ruling, according to the Associated Press.
The case centered on a roughly $550 robbery in 2005 and a paper trail tied to stolen money orders. Prosecutors said Gerald Ross, 70, was robbed after thieves followed him home from a trip to a bank and a post office; they put Ross in a chokehold and took money orders, cash, and a bank book.
Ross regularly received money orders at the post office, which helped investigators follow the documents after the robbery, prosecutors said. The paper trail soon led to Windley, who had provided his name, driver’s license and address when purchasing a stove at an appliance store.
Windley has maintained from the start that he was not involved in the robbery. He told prosecutors he had simply bought a $542.77 money order at a discount from acquaintances who insisted it was valid but that he could not use it for a bureaucratic reason, according to the report.
Prosecutors said Ross identified Windley as one of the thieves through both a photo array and a live lineup, both conducted more than six weeks after the robbery. At Windley’s trial, Windley testified that the acquaintances had approached him and sold him the money order, but the jury convicted him in 2007 of robbery, and because of prior felony convictions he was sentenced to 20 years to life. His appeals failed.
After Windley’s conviction, prosecutors said a friend and private investigators helped him flesh out the identities of two men Windley said sold him the money order. According to the district attorney’s report, prosecutors later relied on sworn statements and interviews in which those two men—identified only as “Suspect 1” and “Suspect 2”—said they robbed Ross together and that Windley was not involved. Prosecutors called the admissions “compelling.”
The district attorney’s office said the two men are serving prison time on other robbery convictions, and that those convictions involved male victims in their 60s and older who were followed home from banks and check-cashing offices in Brooklyn in 2005 and 2006. Prosecutors said that if the jury had known the men’s identities and robbery records, the information would likely have raised reasonable doubt.
No new charges have been brought, prosecutors said, and the legal time frame for bringing charges had run out. Ross died before the dismissal and freedom Monday.
Outside court, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said the case was a cautionary tale. “This case is really a cautionary tale of how things can seem one way but, without careful analysis, not be what it purports to be,” Gonzalez said after shaking Windley’s hand. Gonzalez later added, “Had we known what the evidence was, this case should have never happened,” and said he had apologized privately to Windley.
Windley said he was not bitter. “I’m just going to move on from there,” he told reporters as he planned to head home to celebrate with his family.