DA Vance denies exoneration bid backed by actor Martin Sheen
Prosecutors have turned down an inmate’s bid to be cleared in the 1998 killing of a retired police officer, an exoneration effort championed by actor Martin Sheen.
After an 18-month review of information including eyewitness recantations and a new claim that someone else confessed to the crime, the Manhattan district attorney’s office declined this week to ask a judge to dismiss the case against Jon-Adrian Velazquez.
“We have not found evidence sufficient to demonstrate that Mr. Velazquez is innocent, as he claims,” chief spokeswoman Erin Duggan said in a statement to The Associated Press. Prosecutors said the recantations didn’t merit overturning the case, and the potential other suspect didn’t pan out.