Imagine being locked away in prison for over 20 years for a crime that you did not commit. The anger and disgust that would have to be dealt with day in and day out must be something few people can ever relate to. David Ranta is one of the few who can.
Ranta, 58, left prison Thursday after Brooklyn prosecutors recommended that his case be thrown out due in part to the fact that a witness who was associated with the original trial had been coached into identifying Ranta in a police lineup.
A renewed investigation that began in 2011 found that there were other inconsistencies with the findings. Prosecutors found that the evidence supporting Ranta's conviction "has been degraded to such an extent" that it would no longer uphold the verdict, said John O'Mara, the deputy district attorney in charge of Brooklyn's conviction integrity unit.
Among the contradictory evidence: 1) another man's widow has since come forward to identify her husband as the killer, 2) a former jail inmate has claimed he made up statements used against Ranta, 3) a man has come forward to claim that as a boy he was coached by a detective to pick Ranta out of a lineup.
"Mr. Ranta, to say that I'm sorry for what you have endured would be an understatement and grossly inadequate, but I say it to you anyway," Judge Miriam Cyrulnik said during an emotional hearing.
The case started on Feb. 8, 1990, when a gunman attempted to rob a diamond courier in Brooklyn. The courier was able to escape unharmed, and so the gunman approached a man, Rabbi Chaskel Werzberger, sitting in his car. The gunman shot Werzberger in the forehead, dragged him out of the car, and drove away. Werzberger was a Holocaust survivor and leader of the Satmar Hasidic community.
At the time the murder caused quite a spectacle throughout the city. Then-mayor David Dinkins offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and over thousands attended the rabbi's funeral.
Throughout his incarceration Ranta has claimed that he was wrongly convicted and a victim of the judicial sustem. Asked what he wanted to do now that he is a free man, Ranta's reply was not altogether unsurprising:
"Get the hell out of here," he said, walking out of the Brooklyn courthouse with his lawyer, a small mesh bag carrying the few belongings he still had after over 23 years in jail.
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