After 16 Years in prison, wrongly convicted man free to sue the city
A Williamsburg man was shot and killed during a robbery in 1994. Jabbar Collins was arrested and charged with the crime. Collins submitted to a lineup and was not identified by the four eyewitnesses to the murder. And despite having an alibi for the night in question, Collins was convicted of murder and sentenced to 33 1/3 years in prison.
Collins was freed in 2010 after Brooklyn Federal Judge Dora Irizarry ruled that he was wrongly convicted. Now, 18 years after the crime, Collins’ $150 million lawsuit against the city and the New York City Police Department can proceed after a Brooklyn federal judge ruled that both parties were “deliberately indifferent” to the alleged misconduct that led to Collins’ conviction.
In his complaint, Collins asserts that upon his arrest police officers, unable to find any physical evidence connecting Collins to the crime, obtained a coerced and false statement from Edwin Oliva, a person with no apparent connection to Collins.