Two men who each served decades in prison for murder have sentences vacated by Manhattan DA

NEW YORK — Two men who have spent a combined half-century in prison for murder saw their names cleared in Manhattan on Monday, but only one walked free.

At back-to-back hearings, District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office asked two Manhattan judges to vacate the decades-old murder convictions of Wayne Gardine and Jabar Walker after separate reinvestigations with the Legal Aid Society and The Innocence Project revealed their cases were built on lies.

Both men were convicted in separate murder cases based on investigations by the then-notoriously corrupt 30th Precinct, known then as the “Dirty 30.” A sixth of the precinct’s NYPD officers, 33 in total, were arrested in the 1990s for corrupt police work.

In Walker’s case, Manhattan prosecutors under former DA Bob Morgenthau offered him nine years to plead guilty in 1996 to the murders the year before of Ismael De La Cruz and William Santana. When he refused — citing his innocence — and lost at trial, a judge sentenced him to 50 years.

“I made it,” Walker quietly said in court, wiping a tear from his eye, as Judge Miriam Best vacated his conviction.

The 49-year-old Gardine — who has been in custody since he was 20 — was sitting in a federal detention facility in New Jersey when Judge Kathryn Paek approved the DA and Legal Aid’s motion to vacate his conviction and dismiss the underlying indictment.

Gardine has languished in ICE lockup awaiting deportation to Jamaica since completing his prison sentence in 2022, according to his lawyers.

“He [was] not able to be there because [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] has refused to let him out,” Gardine’s lawyer, Lou Fox, told the Daily News.

“It’s a horrible position to put someone in who has been wrongfully convicted. He spent nearly 30 years behind bars, and he’s still not free. It’s a very bittersweet ending to this story.”

In a statement provided by his attorneys, Gardine thanked them and the DA for re-examining his case and “their respect for the truth.”

“I also want to thank my mom for being there all these years, and I want to thank myself for never giving up,” Gardine said.

“I’m happy that the justice system finally worked.”

Gardine, who left behind a year-old child when he was sent away, has for decades maintained his innocence. He was denied parole four times in 29 years.

“Every time I think of Wayne, I’m brought to tears. He lost nearly three decades of his life for a crime that he didn’t commit,” Gardine’s mother, Grace Davis, said.

“ICE can end this nightmare now by immediately freeing my son.”

An agency spokesperson did not immediately comment, nor would they say if or when Gardine will be released from custody.

Gardine’s 1996 conviction for a fatal Harlem shooting two years prior was based on the word of one eyewitness. The other witness, who did not testify at his trial, revealed to investigators that both had framed Gardine to appease their drug dealer boss.

The lead detective on the case no longer stands by his work on it and told investigators he was a rookie at the time and taking cues from Willie Parson, a detective at the 30th Precinct, who was later convicted of federal drug dealing crimes.

Parson deterred his junior colleague from pursuing another suspect or following up on Gardine’s alibi, which investigators stood up in clearing his name.

“Wayne Gardine was just 22 years old when he was sentenced to decades in prison following a trial that we now believe relied on an unreliable witness and testimony – losing years of freedom due to an unjust conviction,” Bragg said, thanking Legal Aid for its “outstanding” work clearing their client’s name.

Walker’s mom, Patrice Walker, told The News on Monday she remembered the moment Judge Edwin Torres announced her son’s sentence like it was yesterday. She recalled feeling overcome with guilt for supporting his decision to reject the deal when his older brother had told him to take it.

“I had to leave the court, I almost fainted,” she told The News.

Walker’s mother and his father, Terry Walker, were among at least 30 of his relatives and loved ones who packed the courtroom Monday for his hearing, many of whom traveled from Atlanta.

Walker’s 27-year-old daughter, Alexis, was there, too — now almost a decade older than her father was when they were separated.

“Mr. Walker has paid a heavy price for insisting on his innocence the day his prosecution began,” Walker’s lawyer, Vanessa Potkin, said.

“He refused to take the deal, insisting on his innocence.”

On the day of his sentencing, the star witness at Walker’s trial sought to recant his testimony, in which he pinned the blame on Walker for the 1998 fatal shootings of 32-year-old William Santana and Ismael De La Cruz, 30. He remained adamant Walker was innocent when he spoke with investigators taking a fresh look at the case in 2021.

Potkin told Judge Best that Walker legally advocated for himself for years without support, spending countless hours in the prison law library. It wasn’t until a joint investigation between the DA’s office and the Innocence Project uncovered pervasive misconduct in police and prosecutors’ files that he could prove he was telling the truth.

“The joint re-investigation, guided by a commitment to transparency and the ascertainment of truth, revealed a myriad of ways where the system failed Mr. Walker and uncovered pervasive misconduct that led to his wrongful conviction and new evidence of what he has stated all along — he is innocent,” Potkin said.

“He has now spent more than half of his life in prison for a crime he did not do.”

Walker’s father, Terry Walker, told The News he had no choice but to keep the faith for 27 years that his son would see his name cleared.

“We had to believe, you know? That’s really all we had,” he said. “We knew our boy was innocent.”

But the elder Walker said he didn’t believe there was any way to rectify the horrific wrongs his son experienced in New York’s justice system.

“I don’t believe so. I really don’t believe so. We have to accept what happened and move on with our lives,” he said.

“He missed a lifetime. He missed his daughter growing up. He missed us getting older, things that we could have done together. He missed all of that.”

His parents said they were able to visit him about once a month in recent years and more often when he was closer to them at Sing Sing. His mother said he deterred her from taking the taxing journey when her health took a bad turn.

“I’m feeling so good. My stomach is jumping like crazy. I can’t stop it, but to hold him out in the hall, then I will really know he’s home to stay,” Patrice said as she waited for her son to be officially released.

“I really wanted to cry,” she said of the moment Judge Best vacated his conviction.

“I really wanted to say, ‘I told you so!’” Walker’s dad added.