A New York man has been freed from prison after having spent nearly two decades behind bars for a robbery he didn’t commit.
Kenneth Windley, 61, was linked to the 2005 crime after he bought his mother a stove with a money order that he didn’t know was stolen. He was convicted of second-degree robbery and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.
A Brooklyn judge tossed his conviction after prosecutors re-examined his claims of innocence and concluded that he wasn’t involved in the crime.
“It has taken many years, but today we are able to validate his account, release him from prison and exonerate his name,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a statement.
Windley, 61, said outside the courthouse, according to The Associated Press: “It cost me 20 years, but they said they corrected it now. So that’s all that matters.”
Windley’s conviction was connected to a robbery on April 1, 2005, in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood. Two men followed a 70-year-old man into his apartment building and robbed him in the elevator, stealing $485 in cash and two blank, unsigned money orders, one for $542, the other for $9, according to a review of the case that the prosecutor’s office released Monday.
Authorities connected Windley to the crime after he used the larger money order to buy his mother a stove. He was arrested when the victim identified Windley as one of the men who went through his pockets, according to the review.
At his 2007 trial, Windley denied that he was involved in the robbery and testified that he had used the money order only after he bought it from two men outside the appliance store for as much as $400, according to the review.
He said that he knew the men were “hustlers” and sold things on the street but that he believed he was helping them by buying the order, the review says.
Windley testified that he’d never used a money order before and didn’t ask whether it was stolen, according to the review.
Windley was convicted of second-degree robbery in March 2007. Because of previous felony convictions, he was sentenced to 20 years to life, the prosecutor’s office said.
Windley eventually tracked down the men, who were incarcerated for a series of robberies that began in 2005 and targeted elderly men who were returning home from the bank, according to the release.
The men confirmed for the prosecutor’s office that Windley wasn’t involved in the Crown Heights robbery.
Their accounts were corroborated with recorded prison phone calls and emails, the prosecutor’s office said.
