“I’ve been waiting too long”: New Yorker got out free yesterday Thursday after 18 yearsfrom the prison where he was kept after his conviction for murder where did not commitsince he was wrongly accusedintentionally and maliciously, by the police.

The judicial calvary of Sheldon Thomas, 35, can hardly be believed.

The young African-American was convicted in 2004 of the murder of another teenager, 14 at the time, in Brooklyn.

The real perpetrator of the murder remains unknown and elusive.

During a hearing in New York, Mr. Thomas assured that he forgives the investigators, the main prosecution witness, the prosecutors and thanks the judge who acquitted him.

“I’ve waited too long,” he said simply.

Sheldon Thomas is now free after a big-city judge granted the prosecution’s request to overturn the conviction.

In a press release that he published, prosecutor Eric Gonzalez made it known that the investigation of this specific case showed that the young man was unfairly accused by police officers, who used a photo of another African-American with the same name to arrest him.

“The defendant was arrested thanks to a witness who said he was someone else (based on a photo), who had the same name, an error that was later covered up and justified in the criminal proceedings,” Mr. Gonzalez said.

The witness identified Sheldon Thomas when she was shown a photo of another Sheldon Thomas, which police officers deliberately and fraudulently retrieved from a database.

Based on this mistaken identification, Mr. Thomas was arrested at his home and later pointed out by the same witness. The identification led to his being put on trial for murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, which is maintained by an American university, the approximately 2,500 people exonerated after their convictions by the American justice system in the last 30 years spent an average of 13.9 years in prison wrongfully. . Maximum term of unjust imprisonment: 47 years and two months.

In November 2021, a 60-year-old African-American man was acquitted and released in the state of Missouri after 43 years in prison due to a miscarriage of justice.