A man declared innocent after nearly 20 years in prison for murder was freed Friday, but he might have to return to serve an unrelated drug sentence.
An ecstatic Fernando Bermudez left the Sing Sing prison in suburban Ossining with his wife around 2:10 p.m. Friday, one of his lawyers said.
“He’s very happy to be out and very thankful,” attorney Barry J. Pollack said.
A prison system spokeswoman confirmed Bermudez’s release; it wasn’t immediately clear where he was headed.
A Manhattan judge last week overturned Bermudez’s 1992 conviction, saying it stemmed from false and unreliable witness testimony. But Bermudez had remained behind bars because he hadn’t served a 27-month sentence in a federal drug-sale case.
On Thursday, a federal judge ordered Bermudez released at least until June 30 to allow his lawyers time to ask federal officials to credit his drug sentence as served.
Bermudez, 40, has been in jail or prison since his arrest in the Aug. 4, 1991, shooting of Raymond Blount. The 16-year-old was killed after a fight with another teen inside a Manhattan nightclub.
The other teen said Bermudez was the shooter. Four bystander eyewitnesses identified him from police photograph files and then a lineup.
But the eyewitnesses improperly conferred with one another before picking him from police photos, instead of identifying him separately, and each later recanted, state Supreme Court Justice John Cataldo found. The teen involved in the fight lied as he testified under an agreement sparing him criminal charges, the judge said.
No forensic evidence linked Bermudez to the crime.
Cataldo not only threw out Bermudez’s conviction but dismissed the charges, saying Bermudez had proven his innocence. Manhattan prosecutors have said they continue to believe the jury’s guilty verdict was correct, and they are weighing a potential appeal and other options.
Bermudez’s 1991 arrest in a cocaine sting at a suburban mall predated the killing, but his federal prison term was put off because of the murder case.
Federal prosecutors didn’t oppose Bermudez’s temporary release. They declined to comment on whether they will oppose his request for relief from his federal sentence.
He plans to spend the next several days reuniting with friends and relatives, Pollack said. Bermudez and his wife, Crystal, have three children.
AP-ES-11-20-09 1513EST